This profile highlights the inspiring journeys of Unitec’s 2024 Top Pacific Nurse graduates, Katerina Alapae and Seluvaia Havea, whose determination, resilience and commitment to serving their communities have earned them recognition from ProCare. From overcoming personal and financial challenges to balancing family responsibilities with study, both graduates exemplify the values of leadership through service and are now pursuing careers dedicated to improving health outcomes for Pacific communities.

In a step toward making healthcare more sustainable and whānau centric, ProCare has partnered with Heidi Health to reduce the administrative burden on GPs, helping them spend more time where it counts - with their patients.

Heidi Health is an AI medical scribe that automates clinical documentation, enabling GPs to generate accurate notes in real-time during patient consultations. It also facilitates the seamless creation of essential documents, such as referral letters and patient summaries, directly from consultation notes.

Leading healthcare provider, ProCare, has today welcomed the Health Minister’s announcement to increase the number of training places for nurse practitioners specialising in primary care to 120 a year, and support advanced education for up to 120 primary care registered nurses.

Leading healthcare provider, ProCare, has today welcomed the Health Minister’s announcement around the funding uplift for primary care, as the sector has been underfunded for a number of years now.

This summer, health didn’t have to go on hold for hundreds of patients, thanks to funding from ProCare to provide subsidised virtual GP appointments via CareHQ. This funding ensured that patients within the ProCare Network could access the care they needed, even as general practices and their hardworking staff took a well-deserved break after another demanding year. Virtual appointments bridged the gap during the holiday period, meaning patients could continue to connect with trusted medical professionals from the comfort of their homes, or holiday spots.

Six Auckland organisations tackling health inequity and poverty have received a major boost, with the ProCare Charitable Foundation announcing $210,000 in grants to support initiatives that promote community health and wellbeing.

This year’s recipients are:

1. Auckland Women's Centre Inc

2. Babystart Charitable Trust

3. Dance & Arts Therapy NZ

4. Garden to Table Trust

5. Orange Sky NZ Ltd

6. Warriors Community Foundation

Over the last four years, primary healthcare provider, ProCare, has made significant progress on embedding Te Tiriti o Waitangi across all aspects of the business, but acknowledges there is still more to do.

As general practices gear up to take some well-deserved and needed time off over the Christmas period, leading healthcare provider, ProCare, has stepped in to provide funding and subsidised virtual GP appointments via CareHQ to ensure that its communities maintain access to more affordable healthcare over summer.

Aotea Great Barrier is a remote island located 90km off the coast of Auckland with a resident population of around 1,250 people, not including the many holiday-home owners or tourists that travel to and from the island each year.

Many of the services that people on the mainland or in urban areas take for granted are simply not available in remote communities. There is no formal district nursing service, no rest-home or private hospital, and a single provider of limited home help support.

Who’s shaping the future of healthcare? ProCare has unveiled its 2024 Quality Awards and Community Care Challenge winners—celebrating the healthcare heroes and bold ideas driving real change in primary healthcare outcomes.

Announced at ProCare’s Annual General Meeting on Thursday 21 November, these awards highlight exceptional care and groundbreaking initiatives transforming patient outcomes.

Reflections, new faces, and farewells featured in ProCare’s Annual General Meeting last night. The leading healthcare provider brought together Shareholders, Co-operative Board members, practice staff and ProCare staff to reflect on the successes and challenges of the past year and focus on the goals and plans for this financial year.

In response to a lack of government funding and rising operational costs, 97% of general practices across Auckland plan to increase their patient fees, according to a survey from leading healthcare provider ProCare*.

Of those practices surveyed:

• 39% of practices have already increased their fees

• 47% plan on increasing fees in the next 3 months

• 7% will increase fees in the next 3-6 months

• 5% in the next 6+ months, and

• Only 3% won’t be increasing their fees in the next 12 months.

Leading healthcare provider, ProCare, has announced changes to its Health (PHO) Limited Board – effective 3 September.

Donovan Clarke has been appointed as a Director on the Health Board following the resignation of Ann Davis, who has acted as a Nurse Representative since March 2022.

A new range of digital robots have been launched to help ease the load on New Zealand healthcare practices.

ProCare, a leading healthcare provider, is behind the development of digital robots which aim to relieve some of the ever increasing administrative burdens that general practices face.

The launch includes five robots with a focus on inbox management tasks and cardiovascular disease risk assessments.

CareHQ, the virtual GP service and joint venture between ProCare and Southern Cross Health Insurance provided care to more than 43,000 patients over the last 12 months, up 78% on the 12 months prior, where it served more than 24,000 patients.

Bindi Norwell, Chair of CareHQ said: “This huge boost in numbers is a true testament to the value that CareHQ and telehealth services provide to the people of Aotearoa New Zealand, and the assistance that has been provided to support General Practices across the motu.

ProCare welcomes the new workforce initiative being implemented across primary care in New Zealand with the delivery of significant outcomes for general practices, patients and the community.

Sponsored by Te Whatu Ora, the Comprehensive Primary Care Team (CPCT) workforce strategy was successfully launched this year into general practices as a way to further enhance a preventative and proactive approach to supporting patients and help increase the capacity of the stretched workforce to be more responsive to health needs.

There has been little relief for primary care practices in Budget 24 according to leading healthcare provider ProCare.

Bindi Norwell, Chief Executive at ProCare says: On the surface the $2.12 billion headline figure that has been made available for primary care and public health over the next four years sounds impressive. However, when you break that down over four years, that’s roughly $530 million per annum.

ProCare Fresh Minds, New Zealand’s largest provider of primary mental health and wellbeing services, has responded to today’s budget announcement and supports the $24 million allocated to Gumboot Friday for its free youth mental health counselling services.

Bindi Norwell, Chair at Fresh Minds says: “Gumboot Friday is a great initiative, and we are always pleased to see funding allocated to bettering the mental health and wellbeing of our rangatahi.

Serving the community through partnership and collaboration is a key pillar of ProCare’s strategy, so today the leading healthcare provider is delighted to announce that it will further strengthen its relationship with longtime supporter and collaborator, the Heart Foundation.

Over the weekend we were proud to recognise Pacific Nurse graduates at the Manukau Institute of Technology Pasifika Thanksgiving Celebration.

ProCare sponsored the Top Pacific Nurse Award which was split into three categories – Leadership, Academic and Clinical Competency. A huge congratulations to our winners for 2024:

• Leadership - Sione Posesi ‘Ulufonua

• Clinical Excellence - Talaheu Vea

• Clinical Excellence - Nellie Jean Pulefolau

• Academic Excellence – Alex Luatutu Nanai