Jo Scott-Jones and Dave Maplesden discuss empagliflozin and ketoacidosis, decision to fund fosfomycin in the community, latent autoimmune diabetes and more.

Pertussis, or whooping cough, is a highly contagious respiratory disease caused by Bordetella pertussis. While it can affect people of all ages, it is particularly dangerous for infants and young children. Despite vaccination efforts, pertussis continues to cause periodic outbreaks in New Zealand due to waning immunity over time.

We have three full-time and two part-time staff in the nurse lead space across the Pinnacle network. They work as a team to support over 450 nurses (Waikato, Lakes, Taranaki, Tairāwhiti) with a key focus on growing and supporting our nursing kaimahi (staff).

The Quality Improvement Programme (QI Programme) launched 1 July 2024. The programme will be rolled out over three years, with year one focusing on building Quality Improvement capability in general practice.

From support with new role implementation such as primary care assistants (PCAs) to mapping and redesign of current processes such as repeat prescribing processes, your local Pinnacle development manager can support your changing practice needs.

If you are in a pickle with an aspect of your practice population care (immunisation, cervical screening, CVRAs), Jo Scott-Jones suggests reviewing, judging and and acting on a "set piece" response.   

MenB (Bexsero) vaccine is funded from 1 March 2023 and will become part of the National Immunisation Schedule with a primary course administered at the 3-month and 5-month immunisation events followed by a booster dose at the 12-month vaccination event. View relevant IMAC web link resources here.

View the 2022 Pinnacle nurse education Zoom recordings covering medicine management, standing orders, immunisations and more. This page will be updated as recordings become available. These sessions can be used for staff update/training meetings and new staff orientation packages if standing orders are relevant to the role.

The Power BI dashboards are designed to give you clinically useful information that will help you to improve the care of your patients. Our clinical dashboard programme aims to provide focussed data visualisations of your own practice information. The dashboards will give you practical outcomes for individual patients and populations, and in particular support pro-equity activity.

A patient portal is a secure website which can receive and store patients' health information. The information, for example treatments received or medications, is uploaded via your PMS. It then allows other health providers or patients, depending on which tool is being used, to view a summary of the patient's health record.