Our role in hospital medical devices
By 2025, all hospital medical devices purchased by Te Whatu Ora hospitals will come from a national list. Getting there continues to require close collaboration across the health and disability system.
What’s happening?
Pharmac is building a list of all the devices used in Te Whatu Ora hospitals. We are negotiating contracts as we go.
Initially, the list would largely reflect the products being used by Te Whatu Ora hospitals at that time.
Pharmac would continue to run processes aimed at achieving better value for money. This may result in changes to the products available on the list.
Benefits of this new approach are expected to include:
- more consistent access to devices for people getting treatment, regardless of where they live (because all Te Whatu Ora hospitals will choose the devices they use from a common list)
- funding will be freed which may be used to invest in new technology
- Te Whatu Ora hospitals will be supported to manage growing spending on devices in a more sustainable way
- a high level of transparency around funding decisions.
Once further work has been done to developing up the operational detail, we will be able to set a date for implementation.
What we’ve done so far
We’ve started by negotiating national contracts, which enable all Te Whatu Ora hospitals to buy products they’re currently using on common terms for things like price and supply.
As well as delivering immediate benefits to Te Whatu Ora hospitals, this work is laying the foundation for work to come. That’s because it’s enabling us to:
- build important relationships with device stakeholders
- compile a list of devices that largely reflect what Te Whatu Ora hospitals are using
- develop our understanding of these products.
We’ve also negotiated some market share agreements, which guarantee suppliers a portion of the market in return for offering competitive pricing on products.
What happens next?
Pharmac and Te Whatu Ora are working closely together. Significant changes to the health and disability sector were introduced by the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act 2022.
Where we were previously talking to over 20 DHBs and health procurement agencies, we are now focused on a single entity, Te Whatu Ora. Both Pharmac and Te Whatu Ora are working through what this will mean for our work on hospital medical devices.