Latest / Best of Business / Cecilia Robinson: Tend CEO on the company looking to acquire Green Cross Health's medical division

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Cecilia Robinson: Tend CEO on the company looking to acquire Green Cross Health's medical division · Best of Business

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  Speaker 2: So Digital First Healthcare TEND has announced this making a
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  Speaker 2: big purchase. It's planning to buy the medical division of
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  Speaker 2: green Cross Health, which is called The Doctors, for two
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  Speaker 2: hundred and seventy million dollars. The Doctors has a network
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  Speaker 2: of sixty five clinics looking after four hundred thousand patients
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  Speaker 2: and ten Health CEO Cecilia Robinson joins me now afternoon, Cecelia.
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  Speaker 3: Good afternoon.
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  Speaker 2: Why are you doing this?
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  Speaker 3: Well, Look, it's really about the living on our purpose
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  Speaker 3: at TEND. Our purposes to help New Zealand as be
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  Speaker 3: the healthiest people in the world. And you know, we're
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  Speaker 3: built a world class technology platform which we've integrated into
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  Speaker 3: clinics across New Zealand and what we're seeing is a
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  Speaker 3: significant improvement and path for both in terms of patient
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  Speaker 3: outcome and clinician outcomes. And being able to acquire the Doctors'
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  Speaker 3: practices will enable us to continue to implement that model
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  Speaker 3: across small practices across the country.
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  Speaker 2: Sixty five clinics, four hundred thousand patients. Will they notice
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  Speaker 2: them changes day to day under your management.
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  Speaker 3: Well, look, I mean initially patients will be continue to
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  Speaker 3: be cared for by the clinical teams the medical centers
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  Speaker 3: that they know, and continuity will of care will be
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  Speaker 3: that priority. But over time we will be integrating those
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  Speaker 3: clinics into our infrastructure as well. And what we've seen
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  Speaker 3: across our current clinics has been that we've significantly improved
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  Speaker 3: things like wait times. You know, We've got examples of
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  Speaker 3: clinics that have gone from you know, a month wait
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  Speaker 3: time down to five days. We've significantly decreased the administration
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  Speaker 3: bidden for our clinicians. We've been able to lift workforce participation,
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  Speaker 3: We've been able to improve access to care, improve immunization rates.
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  Speaker 3: So yes, over time all of those positive benefits will
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  Speaker 3: also improve, you know, the clinics that we will be
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  Speaker 3: acquiring for the doctors.
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  Speaker 2: Any regulatory hurdles, I mean, how soon can this go through?
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  Speaker 3: Well, look, you know we're looking at settlement at the
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  Speaker 3: end of July and Green Cross how shareholders receive notice
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  Speaker 3: of that meeting and due course in advance to be
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  Speaker 3: able to vote on the sale, So that should be
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  Speaker 3: happening hopefully in July, and then we'll be settling at
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  Speaker 3: the end of the month.
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  Speaker 2: Earlier this year, independent GPS we're complaining about primary care
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  Speaker 2: funding for GPS and practices in regions and warning that
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  Speaker 2: corporatization was becoming inevitable and corporatization leads to less local
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  Speaker 2: GPS and clinics responding to their community needs. What would
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  Speaker 2: you say to.
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  Speaker 3: That, Well, look, it's not founded on the data that
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  Speaker 3: we have, and so what we've been able to demonstrate
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  Speaker 3: with the practices that we have acquired is that we
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  Speaker 3: improve access, we improve equity, we improve workforce participation. So
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  Speaker 3: I think it's really important that when we're talking about
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  Speaker 3: the state of primary care that we're actually looking at
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  Speaker 3: data and actually not anactatia. And so for us, we
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  Speaker 3: look at the data, we look at what's actually happening
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  Speaker 3: in the sector and how we're improving healthcare outcomes, and
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  Speaker 3: that is strongly evidenced by the work that we're doing
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  Speaker 3: in the communities that where we provide services.
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  Speaker 2: And does it mean the government has more efficient pathway
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  Speaker 2: to finding out you know what's happening with health outcomes?
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  Speaker 3: Well, absolutely, I think that we need more transparency as
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  Speaker 3: taxpayers to be able to understand how our health spend
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  Speaker 3: is being spent, and primary care is a fantastic pathway
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  Speaker 3: for government to invest their funds into because it's preventative
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  Speaker 3: and hospital care is a lot more expensive. But at
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  Speaker 3: the same time, there's an obligation from our sector to
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  Speaker 3: be able to provide better information to those funders, to
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  Speaker 3: be able to help them make informed decisions, and so look,
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  Speaker 3: you know, ultimately we think that's a really important part
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  Speaker 3: of this as well.
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  Speaker 2: To see they're Robinson. Congratulations and I thank you for
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  Speaker 2: your time today. To see the Robinson ten Healthcare CEO.
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