The Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 significantly altered the regime by which New Zealand's medical practitioners are registered and certified to practice.

The Act repealed 11 occupational statutes governing 13 professions. Having one legislative framework allows for consistent procedures and terminology across the professions now regulated by the Act. The Act, which came into effect in 2004, also includes mechanisms to ensure that practitioners are competent and fit to practise their professions for the duration of their professional lives.

To meet its commitments under the Act the Physiotherapy Board needed to be able to undertake a range of new reporting activities as well as hold different information on the physiotherapists registered with them. The legislative change necessitated the implementation of a new management and database system.

Requirements
Eight people work in the board's main Wellington office, handling enquiries, therapists' registration details, and logging complaints and appeals against individual practitioners. A range of assessors, evaluators and auditors from across New Zealand also work for the board on an "as needed" basis.

“We needed a system that our people could use that was simple, versatile and flexible and could allow us to maintain a comprehensive registry that could track the communication we had with practitioners,” says Sue Beggs, the board's chief executive.

Finding a solution
The board releasing a request for proposal and received a number of submissions from potential vendors. It chose The Integrators (now known as Trialta) to build a customised solution using SalesLogix 6.1 as the technology platform.

“We settled upon SalesLogix because it was simple to use and cost effective and we knew we could get good local support from The Integrators because they are here in Wellington,”  says Beggs.

Making it happen
Extensive customisations needed to be made within SalesLogix and its tables and views to meet the objectives and requirements of the project. The task was broken down into sections, each involving a range of modifications, that were built by The Integrators and tested separately by the board.

The biggest challenge in developing the solution lay in the fact that it had to be designed before all the requirements could be fully defined, due to the timescale involved in implementing the legislation. Everyone was fully aware of the issues so time was allocated to take into account that requirements could change as the project progressed.

The system needed to be built to handle two main areas of business processing that the board is involved in.

The first area revolves around the demands of tracking and maintaining data related to practicing and registered physiotherapists. The board needs to keep track of ongoing fees and fee structures, where a physiotherapist needs to register every year so they can keep practicing, any issues regarding their certification to practice, and any complaints and concerns registered against them.

Secondly, the board needs a separate mechanism for tracking new applications and the activities associated with each new application such as checking application details, recording the qualifications they’ve attained, and organising assessments. Essentially there is a checklist used for processing each applicant and ensuring they are qualified and competent to practice physiotherapy in New Zealand.

One of the main requirements stemming from the legislation was the need for the complaints process to become more formalised and documented. Another requirement was to incorporate a "scope of practice" within the registry. When a physiotherapist registers they are assigned a "scope of practice" which specifies the range of activities they are allowed to undertake, including research and teaching.

Going live
The system went live in October 2004. Prior to the go-live date the board ran the new system in parallel with its old system to ensure everything was working properly and that the data they were handling was accurate.

“The information we handle affects people’s livelihoods and the well being of the public, so our data needs to extremely accurate and up to date,” says Beggs.

Certain information the board keeps about registered physiotherapists needs to be publicly available, such as what qualifications they have, what Act they were registered under, what their scope of practice is and the status of their registration. The board also stores a range of other information that is not available to the public which is used for internal purposes and for maintaining the annual practicing certificates for individual physiotherapists.

Clearly defined processes and procedure about what information can be given out and what can’t have been built into the operational guidelines for the new system. There were no major problems with the project. The Integrators worked very closely with the board to overcome a number of small teething problems related to getting the system up and running.

“We found the people from the Integrators to be very professional and worked very hard to help us with any issues that emerged,” says Beggs.

The benefits
The board's business revolves around the legislation under which it operates. Essentially, without the new system, the it would never have been able to comply with the new legislation and honour its commitment to the people of New Zealand. The system has allowed the board to meet its obligations cost-effectively while adding a range of other benefits and functions.

“What I love about the system is the short cut keys and the ease we can do searches and build queries’, says Beggs.

Another major benefit of the system is the level of reporting it offers, which allows the board to obtain a wide variety of statistics about the therapists they have on their database. Many of these reports go to the Health Minister to help in the formation of policy.

“What is really convenient is the ability to store documents in the system that we’ve received or sent, ensuring everything in relation to a particular person is at your fingertips without having to look up a paper file,” says Beggs.

The future
As well as upgrading to a later version of SalesLogix some time in the future, the board are looking at using the system to do more work around keeping track of an individual’s level of competency and level of professional development. This will also involve undertaking some form of auditing procedures and assessment processes. It is envisaged that this will be incorporated into the system in the next 6 to 12 months.

For more information
www.sagebusiness.com.au

April 2007