The development of a single national platform for accessing health data in New Zealand is now underway as the contract to implement the project has been awarded to Accenture. 

In a statement, Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand said it chose Accenture as the implementation partner for the National Data Platform (NDP) project, which seeks to unify information held by over 28 health system entities.

Te Whatu Ora previously reached out to interested providers who can establish a "nationally consistent system of data capture, analytics and intelligence," which also forms part of a broader federated data platform. 

WHY IT MATTERS

Presently, existing data environments across the New Zealand healthcare landscape vary in degree of maturity, quality, and consistency, making some data incomplete, difficult to find and access, and unstructured. 

The NDP is intended to be accessible to relevant health organisations so they can manage their own data and share them for reporting and analytics. These organisations include Te Whatu Ora, Te Aka Whai Ora (Maori Health Authority), and the Ministry of Health, with the potential to scale to other organisations such as primary and community providers, the Ministry of Disabled People, the Cancer Control Agency, and non-profit organisations.

Aside from accelerating access to health system data and enabling secure, easy connectivity to a modern analytics tool, the NDP will also help reduce cost and data duplication. 

THE LARGER CONTEXT

"The establishment of an NDP is a crucial enabler in the context of the health system reforms and forms part of a suite of related initiatives already underway on matters of data governance, data standards, and identity and access management," Te Whatu Ora said previously. 

The organisation also plans to create similar nationally unified patient information platforms for individuals, clinicians, and health providers. 

In the past two years, the New Zealand government invested nearly a billion dollars to develop the health system's data and digital infrastructure and capability. This includes NZ$385 million ($280 million) in Budget 2021 and NZ$320 million ($200 million) in Budget 2022 to resolve legacy system issues and introduce new technology capabilities. The past two budgets for Health also include funding to implement the new national health information platform Hira, which the first tranche of implementation is ongoing. 

ON THE RECORD

"It is the beginning of a multi-year transition and we’re looking forward to connecting our many data environments into one nationally consistent information hub. The data will be secured and ready for analysis so we can track how the health system is performing and where we can improve," Te Whatu Ora Interim Head of Integration Stuart Bloomfield said.