nHIP pushed out until 2021

NEWS – eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth

Picture: MoH group manager digital strategy and investment Darren Douglass speaking at the NZHIT Summit 

Work on developing a national Health Information Platform has been pushed out one year due to the impact of Covid-19 and new items have been added to tranche one of the project.

The time to complete this first stage, which will now include incorporating information about entitlements and access to primary care data for consumers, has been reduced by six months.

Ministry of Health group manager digital strategy and investment Darren Douglass gave an update on the platform at an NZHIT Summit in Auckland on October 29.

He said the original plan (with Cabinet approval) was to establish tranche one in June of this year, but when Covid-19 hit the entire nHIP team was moved on to the pandemic response. 

The team is now back working on the national platform and the first tranche is expected to take 2.5 years rather than 3, running from 2021-2023.

“We've established governance again and we'll also be looking at our advisory and engagement structure,” he said.

Douglass likened nHIP to being a GPS for the health system that acts to help patients navigate a path, find services and provides access to information in a personalised way.

It does not involve creating a central data repository, but “will have the ability to assemble a virtual electronic record on an “as required” basis from multiple trusted sources, and provide access to data and services,” he previously told eHealthNews.nz.

Douglass told attendees that a lack of data in health is not the issue, the problem is that it is fragmented, stored in siloes and locked away in organisations that are only able to use it for a specific purpose.

“We want data to be federated with services provided by the sector, but made accessible in a safe way and keeping people in control of their information and how it’s used,” he told the summit audience. 

He said understanding of data governance and data sovereignty are still “pretty poor” and these issues need to be solved before opening up greater access to data or the system runs the risk of undermining public trust and social license to use health data.

The high-level business case for the nHIP was approved last September, with a detailed case due to go back to Cabinet at the end of March 2020, before being delayed due to Covid-19.

It is now due to go before Cabinet before the end of this year, however this could easily slip back to early 2021.

The Ministry of Health is seeking a multi-year funding model with separate business cases developed to support four tranches of the programme.

Hear more from Douglass at a webinar on Thursday 5 November from 7-8pm, And then Covid-19 happened… an update on the national Health Information Platform.