equity

Equity

Collaborative Aotearoa aims to provide every New Zealander with equitable access to health and wellbeing services across Aotearoa.

We are particularly focused on equitable healthcare outcomes for Māori groups who have previously faced unconscious bias when accessing healthcare resources. We are supported by, and continue to embed, Māori input within our practices. It is important to us to strive for health equity to ensure your whānau feel confident and assured when accessing our services, it also ensures that the level of care provided by our staff is outstanding.

We believe all patients should receive excellent healthcare regardless of their socio-economic, demographic or geographic status.

Whanaungatanga

Whaea Merle talks about the importance of Whakawhanangatanga and why it was important to include this creating the Health Care Home enhanced Model of Care.

Understanding equity

Equity and equality are often misunderstood. There is a difference and it is important to understand this when discussing health outcomes in Aotearoa.

Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities. Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.

Equality we can see in the top part of the image is where everyone gets the same size bike. But it only fits one person.

Equality ignores the barriers that exist in the world, which include
• Economic barriers
• Gender barriers
• Geographic barriers
• Aging barriers
• Physical barriers
• Unconscious bias, racism & discrimination

Equity gives everyone a bike that fits their individual requirements and opens up opportunities for everyone.

Image credit: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Dr Andrew Miller,

GP Bush Road Medical

I really like the idea of revisiting the concept of risk stratification. Even renaming the element to "opportunity stratification" would change the mindset of seeing patients as "risks". We should be looking for opportunities to find out "what matters to people" and engage with people to try and resolve the things that are getting in the way of well being.

This means looking a data that sits outside of health and takes into consideration the social determinants that impact on well being. It also means having care planning that starts with social determinants and patient activation measures before making our business as usual medical model plans.

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