Creating a long-term legacy in healthcare outcomes

Held at Tākina Wellington Convention & Exhibition Centre, the RANZCOG ASM brought together 800 delegates, from 12 to 16 October 2024. It helped foster meaningful connections and collaborations between New Zealand-based specialists in obstetrics and gynaecology and their Australian counterparts.

Themed ‘Partnerships in Practice’, the ASM emphasises the importance of relationships in healthcare. Particularly in leadership, decision-making, and governance.

As part of this, RANZCOG undertook a legacy project with support from Business Events Wellington. It aims to address a gap in the understanding of labour and birth outcomes due to a lack of data. Adding specific sessions into the ASM programme saw 25 hospitals share and examine comparable data, using the Ten Group Classification System.

Sara MacArthur, RANZCOG Manager, Events says, “To get data from 25 hospitals was a huge undertaking. Initially, we thought if we could get five it would be amazing.”

Conference Organising Committee chair Dr Pelle Kempe says there's been a lot of great feedback from this initiative.

“Our birthing community wants to know what to expect. Trauma is a mismatch between expectations and outcomes. What are the chances of this happening, and the risks of this in our unit, rather than quoting numbers from an American study that might not apply?

“That knowledge is powerful. A lot of those 25 units will go back to their hospital and say what can we do about this? Where can we improve?”

Pelle says the information gathered was the starting point for RANZCOG to drive a philosophy centred on patient outcomes rather than performance. The long-term goal is to establish a national registry to capture quality data in gynaecology and obstetrics.

“The solution to healthcare problems is to understand where to put the effort. The ongoing conversation is that data like this should be collected automatically and readily available. Do you leave the hospital with a healthy baby and an intact perineum, rather than how many nights did you stay in the bed?”

RANZCOG also centred Māori and First Nations people in the conference content. This was to recognise inequality and poorer birth outcomes for these groups.

Pelle says, “After the mihi whakatau we went straight into a session about partnerships with First Nations people and it set the scene for the whole conference.”

Feedback from many delegates said the sessions have inspired them to look at ways of improving how they work with First Nations people. From accommodating cultural beliefs in patient care to investigating indigenous training pathways in the field.

Sara adds, “The content was very well-received and interwoven into the programme in Wellington, not just run as a stand-alone session. As an event planner, it made me think how we could do it in Australia as well.”

She notes the benefits of hosting the Australasian event at Tākina in Wellington.

“Tākina’s layout made the event feel more intimate. We had a crèche and parents’ room in the venue, where delegates could watch by live cross to the plenary. That supported 20 to 30 people who couldn’t have attended otherwise.

“Where Tākina is based, it's really good for access to the city and restaurants. It’s an inviting place for a convention centre. A lot of people took walks along the waterfront after sitting in sessions to get some fresh air and digest information.”

The event included a dinner at the Michael Fowler Centre, and a graduation ceremony and pre-meeting workshop at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. A small VIP dinner took place at Parliament House.

“That showcased New Zealand really well to the Australian cohort. There has been a really good energy to this event.”