Impact of removing prescription co-payments on the use of costly health services: a pragmatic randomised controlled trial.

Objectives: To determine whether exempting people (with high health needs and living in areas of high deprivation) from a $5 prescription charge reduces hospital use.

Design: Two-group parallel prospective randomised controlled trial.

Setting: People living in the community in various regions of New Zealand.

Role for colorectal teams to support non-colorectal teams to improve clinical outcomes and adherence to ERAS guidelines for segmental colectomy: a cohort study.

Background: To identify whether compliance with Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) Society recommendations is associated with length of stay (LOS) in a New Zealand hospital for patients undergoing segmental colectomy in mixed acute and elective general surgery wards.

Methods: Consecutive elective colorectal surgeries (n = 770) between October 2012 and February 2019 were audited. Patients with non-segmental colectomies, multi-organ surgeries, LOS > 14 days, and those who died were excluded.

A messy reality: an analysis of New Zealand's elective surgery scoring system via media sources, 2000-2006.

Waiting lists for elective procedures are a characteristic feature of tax-funded universal health systems. New Zealand has gained a reputation for its 'booking system' for waiting list management, introduced in the early-1990s. The New Zealand system uses criteria to 'score' and then 'book' qualifying patients for surgery.

Alcohol advertising in the New Zealand university student press.

University students drink more heavily than their non-student peers in New Zealand. The promotion of alcohol via advertising is a known contributor to heavy drinking. The aim of this paper was to determine the nature and extent of alcohol-related advertising and related policies at New Zealand universities.