The challenge

NDHB asked us to help improve its understanding of how it can best meet its population's needs for health services, many of whom live in small towns, rural areas and isolated communities.

In the short video below, one of our project partners and participants talk about their experiences of the project, as well as the impact it has had.

What did we do?

We used the questioning, understanding, designing and refining phases of our innovative action model .

That involved:

• engaging with community members, public health leaders, health professionals and key health service providers in Northland to understand the population health needs.
• examining existing knowledge of and demand for sexual health services.
• turning this knowledge into a concise and accessible set of insights that form the basis of a sexual health needs assessment.
• co-creating a draft school based health service model with Northland high school students, young people that have recently left school and youth health clinicians and managers.
• leading a process with service users, managers and clinicians to develop a sexual health plan based on the sexual health needs assessment developed in 2014.

We created

Insights On Sexual Health In Northland .

A School Based Health Services Model of Care.

A Northland Sexual Health Plan.

Our impact

Through an enhanced understanding of youth and sexual health behaviour and services and a revised model of care we'll be helping Northland DHB to achieve its goals of preventing unplanned pregnancies, reducing sexually transmitted infections and improving youth health outcomes.

"I've really enjoyed the experience, I like the way I'm supported by the organisation - that I'm not left hanging. What I really, really love, is that I get a document that is only 10 pages - tells me what the issues are and offers solutions or strategies in how to overcome some of those issues. "

Jeanette Wedding, General Manager, Northland DHB

"innovate change carried out the sexual health needs assessment in an engaged, flexible and accommodating manner. The results are to form the base of the new Northland sexual health services plan for 2015, which is the first of its kind in New Zealand."

Anil Shetty, Senior Public Health Analyst, Northland DHB