RNZ
Health NZ will stop using an equity adjustor tool that prioritised ethnicity as one of five factors in non-urgent surgical waitlists after a review found it was “legally and ethically justifiable” but didn’t follow “best practice”.
The report, released to RNZ, recommended the tool continue to be used in the hospitals it’s already been rolled out in, but under strict conditions and on the basis improvements are made.
It also recommended no other hospitals adopt the algorithm for prioritising non-urgent surgical waitlists until a national strategy is designed and implemented.