We all can help to rebuild NZ healthcare. We have the technology.

I must admit I was taken aback on Tuesday evening as I attended the Digital Health Association (DHA) parliamentary event at the Beehive. ?It was great to see a close to 400 people turnout from the vendor community, government officials and the Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora team - a strong signal that we all want to work together. ?It was also pleasing to have the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care there to provide us with some much-needed inspiration as to what they are doing over the ditch.?

But, it has been a challenging and eye-opening week for those involved in healthcare in New Zealand. ?The theme for the event on Tuesday evening?was around "Unifying technology for seamless sharing across borders" between Australia and New Zealand. Whilst I believe in the bold vision and it is a great idea for things like standards and knowledge sharing, there is plenty of water to flow through the Tasman Sea before it's a practical solution (think about all those industries before that have toyed with this idea before getting caught up in the hoopla of legal systems, regulations, sovereignty, let alone the question of who pays for healthcare?). ??

Like myself, Minister Reti was supportive of the antipodean notion but rightfully posed the question "what is the why” behind the need to unify? ?

In my view, now is not the time for a ‘hospital pass to Australia’ - we must focus first on sorting out our own backyard first.?

In a week where it was announced that $1.4 billion of savings from NZ public health spend is required, now is not the time for futuristic, nirvana-like state discussions for sharing technology and data with our Australian friends (no disrespect but they have their own challenges of sharing health data between different care settings and state lines), it should have been about how the vendor community and Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora can galvanise together to enable our front line workers with technology that lets them to do their job - caring for patients with the investment levels we have available to us.??

This Aussie dream feels like something that could easily become a distraction right at the minute – if rapid centralisation in Health New Zealand hasn’t gone smoothly and blown budgets, what would an additional Australian overlay do??

New Zealand’s healthcare system isn’t broken; the pieces just need to be rearranged – and quickly.?

The news is focused on budget blow outs. But let’s call a spade a spade, the focus now must be about providing the best possible care, saving lives and increasing health outcomes with the money we’ve got and even doing more with less in some areas. This is about people and their health, not finger pointing and point scoring.?

All of us involved in healthcare in New Zealand need to play our part, be vocal, and come up with practical ideas as to how we can help with the mammoth task in front of us. ?I believe that we at Orion Health can play a small part to help New Zealand out in our area of specialty. ?Every major health economy around the world has a Shared Care Record or Health Information Exchange that enables access to a patient’s longitudinal record across multiple care settings - from the hospital, primary care, social care and even the home. ?Giving access to this information to clinicians simply empowers them with information they need at their fingertips, wherever they care for the patient, saves time from ringing around for the most up-to-date record, removes duplicated orders/testing and ultimately provides better outcomes for the patients. ?

Sounds too good to be true? ?No, in fact it's well within our reach in New Zealand. Health New Zealand has already purchased most of the technology Orion Health uses to power these solutions around the world, including seven Canadian provinces, six USA states, 20% of NHS England, most of Scotland, all of Northern Ireland, and the whole of Saudi Arabia. ?In fact, the South Island already has a working version of a Shared Care Record, but we desperately need one for the North Island that can fulfil our national requirements.?

With a bit of repurposing, technology modernisation, vendor-to-vendor partnerships, alignment with Health New Zealand, sprinkled with some kiwi ingenuity we could have a Shared Care Record for all of New Zealand at the fraction of the cost and time of some of the recent investments we have seen in data and digital.?

Many other Kiwi vendors have equally world beating digital solutions that solve a whole raft of healthcare delivery challenges. ?Let’s make sure we hear them, and back them, when our health system needs it the most.?