Oamaru was the first stop on the two-day tour yesterday, which also included sessions in Alexandra and Queenstown before moving on to Gore and Balclutha today.
About 40 people gathered at the Oamaru Opera House to hear from SDHB commissioner Kathy Grant, deputy commissioners Graham Crombie and Richard Thomson, and chief executive Chris Fleming.
Mrs Grant said while the health board had had its share of successes, such as being the first district health board in the country to launch the national bowel screening programme, it had also experienced challenges.
Those included concerns at the level of service provided in its urology and ophthalmology departments and its maternity services. The latter would be addressed by its recently introduced Integrated Primary Maternity System of Care.
''Dealing with challenges of that nature is not easy,'' she said.
''As a DHB we acknowledge we don't always get things right ... it's about finding sustainable solutions.''
Its goals were to provide better co-ordination of care throughout the region, provide care closer to home, more effective communication, a better overall experience for patients and high-quality service.
Mr Fleming said it was planned to offer healthcare through a physical community health hub called ''healthcare homes'' that medical practices in the board's region could apply to become part of.
Of the health board area's 81 practices, 29 had applied.
Mr Fleming expected at least one healthcare home would be based in each regional centre.
