Our vision is better bones and fewer fractures for New Zealanders.

Our mission is to make this happen by engagement with the public, health professionals, policymakers and the private sector, through programmes of awareness, advocacy and education, to prevent fractures caused by osteoporosis.

Advocacy

Since publication in 2012, we have used our strategy BoneCare 2020 to drive:

1. Development of a New Zealand Hip Fracture Registry, which will benchmark prospectively the quality of hip fracture care in all District Health Boards (DHBs) against trans-Tasman professional guidelines published in 2014.
2. Gained support from the Ministry of Health to achieve full implementation by all DHBs of Fracture Liaison Services (FLS), the model of care which ensures that all patients presenting with fractures caused by osteoporosis receive the osteoporosis assessment and treatment that they need, combined with interventions to reduce falls risk.

Education

In 2013, Osteoporosis NZ in combination with the Australian and NZ Bone and Mineral Society held a clinical densitometry course for practitioners and technologists involved with bone densitometry.  The course covered the pathophysiology of osteoporosis, as well as the principles and practice of bone density and body composition measurement. This was held in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences in University of Auckland.  Upon completion of the course and achievement of a pass mark in the examination, participants were awarded a Certificate of Completion in Clinical Bone Densitometry.

Awareness

In 2013, Osteoporosis NZ worked with the Health Quality & Safety Commission (HQSC) to increase awareness of BoneCare 2020 among health professionals. See Topic 6 of HQSC’s Reducing harm from falls initiative. Osteoporosis NZ also sought to increase awareness of the variation in access to bone mineral density (BMD) testing across New Zealand. Our publication appeared in the international journal Archives of Osteoporosis and was shared with professional organisations and government departments. See:

Does insufficient access to dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) stifle the provision of quality osteoporosis care in New Zealand? Arch Osteoporos. 2013;8(1-2):120. PubMed ID 23361437

By 2018, Osteoporosis New Zealand intends to demonstrate a 25% improvement in national awareness of osteoporosis, and the fractures that it causes, compared with results from a baseline public survey of adults carried out in 2015.