Mount Wellington GP and Health Navigator Charitable Trust
founder and CEO Janine Bycroft has tonight received a Royal
New Zealand College of General Practitioners Distinguished
Fellowship for outstanding services to the practice of
medicine.
A Distinguished Fellowship is the highest
honour a GP can receive, with Distinguished Fellows
recognised as having made sustained contributions to general
practice, medicine, or the health and wellbeing of the
community.
A GP for over 28 years with a Master’s in
Public Health (Hons), Dr Bycroft is also clinical lead at
ProCare Health for Hēre Toitu, a project with the Ministry
of Social Development.
She is involved with a number
of projects to improve long-term condition management at a
local, regional and national level and often presents at
various forums. This includes being
the primary care
clinical lead for the National Shared Care Plan programme
from 2010–2014.
Dr Bycroft’s areas of interest
include collaborative care, care planning, self-management
support, quality improvement, chronic care, digital health,
health literacy and integrated care.
Visionary and
shining example Award nominator Lynda Gee says: “Janine’s
tireless efforts, devotion to and involvement in primary
care integrated in all her roles as an advocate, visionary,
creator, forerunner and national representative can only be
described as distinguished amongst us. She is a shining
example of what one person can do to improve and service our
general practice community and those we
serve.”
Wellington Professor of Medicine Rebecca
Grainger says Dr Bycroft has showed unparalleled tenacity in
following her vision of high-quality health information
available freely to all New Zealanders.
“Janine has
led a team to provide comprehensive health information
resources to all New Zealanders with meticulous attention to
all manner of details from content, to usability, to sector
engagement, and beyond.
“This is a world class
product, which Janine has managed to deliver in an
incredibly cost-effective way.
“Janine’s
leadership and hard work will have positively impacted on
literally hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders via the
online provision of health information. “
Auckland
doctor Adrienne Mills says: “It is an understatement to
say that Health Navigator is an invaluable tool for general
practice.”
“This represents many, many hours of
unpaid work in the service of general practice and the
health of New Zealanders. It demonstrates cultural
inclusivity, mana tangata, foresight and creativity. This
one New Zealand doctor has moved mountains and foothills to
create a single Everest, relevant and up to date and
available to every New Zealander.”
Health Navigator
NZ website The Health Navigator NZ website supports GPs on a
daily basis as a patient and professional resource. It also
supports clinicians with a hub for accessing topical and
continuing professional development information, wellness
support education, clinical skills and cases
references.
The website provides up to date, unbiased,
trustworthy, patient-centred health information relevant to
the NZ environment in easy to understand formats (written
info, links to reputable websites, apps, videos etc), also
available in multiple languages.
Health Navigator is a
household name for GPs nationally, as well as many other
health organisations providing an invaluable source of
patient education to direct patients and clinicians alike.
In the past month, the website has reputed to have hit 1.8
million views, fuelled by the need for Covid related
information.
Dr Bycroft received her top award for GPs
at the 2022 Fellowship and Awards Ceremony, held during
GP22: the Conference for General Practice in
Christchurch.
RNZCGP president Samantha Merton
congratulated Dr Bycroft for being recognised by her peers
in this way and thanked her for her invaluable contribution
to the college and general practice.
“With so much
misinformation online, it is so important to have sites such
as Health Navigator NZ being kept up to date with science,
and evidence-based information that has been reviewed by
trained medical professionals.
“The amount of work
that goes into the Health Navigator resource, as well as her
GP consultations and research undertakings showcase Dr
Bycroft’s dedication to the profession. She is a very
deserving recipient of this
honour.”
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