Associate Minister of Health Damien O'Connor today announced six successful applicants who are to receive funding through the Ministry of Health's Rural Innovations Fund.

Schizophrenia Fellowship Central Otago, Te Whanau A Apanui Community Health, New Zealand Institute of Rural Health, Gore Health, Katikati Medical Centre and a collaboration of Northland GPs (led by Dr Aniva Lawrence of Kawakawa Medical Centre) will each receive up to $50,000 towards their innovative projects.

Mr O'Connor said this year's funded projects include researching ways to respond to an identified service gap in rural health, and developing a local website and forum for Schizophrenia Fellowship Central Otago.

Gore Health will use it's funding to begin implementing a tool for patient self-management in rural areas, and Te Whanau A Apanui Community Health plans to employ a manager to reduce the number of patients not attending post-discharge appointments.

In the Far North, Dr Aniva Lawrence and other local GPs will be employing a community-based coordinator, who will support medical students and locums. It is expected that this will improve the quality of their placement experience and encourage more medical students and locums to take up work and training opportunities in the Far North.

"The quality of the applications was very high and this reflects the hard work going on in the rural health sector," Mr O'Connor said.

"These projects all have the potential to be rolled out nationally if they show they can improve the delivery of rural health care services. I challenge other rural health professionals to come up with other bright ideas for innovative projects.

"This could be something that improves the IT structure of their business, extra support for management or further training of staff. I am sure there are lots of innovative health professionals out there."

Further details can be found at the Ministry of Health's website www.moh.govt.nz. Or click here.

Applications close on 31 March 2007.