CIO Interview: From legacy to modernity

VIEW - Alistair Vickers, CIO Tū Ora Compass Health

Over the last two years, Wellington and Wairarapa based Primary Health Organisation Tū Ora Compass Health, approved a transformation programme to replace its legacy IT systems onto a new Cloud- based environment. A transformation requiring significant investment from the organisation.

Executive and board support for change, coupled with a growing awareness of new technology solutions, offered a ‘blank slate’ opportunity for change.

This allowed us to think, innovate and do differently on our journey from legacy to modernity. We could also leverage my previous experience in other roles to transition our systems onto an ‘as a service’ technology model.

That transformation on this scale was implemented within two years is quite something. It’s even more of an achievement for a Primary Health Organisation, when viewed through the lens of the Covid-19 pandemic and an international Cyber-attack, both of which required significant additional time and resource to manage.

The Tū Ora new Azure environment now delivers:

• a new claims and payments system (Te Puna Mātauranga) simplifying the whole process with an automated one step validation, a modern SQL server data warehouse with a Power BI front end cleaning out discrepancies in data, and enriching these data sets to extract better results for the performance of the organisation; 
•  a clinician portal where administrators, clinicians and management can manage their relationship with the organisation through profiles so that each user in the system has access to specifically defined functions;
• administration can now manage the roster and scheduling of clinicians and Continuous Professional Development courses for clinicians allowing them to book online;
• Modern telecommunication and collaboration environment with Microsoft Teams, enabled by our Managed Network and Telephony Services partner Telesmart;
• Full stack software defined Meraki network solution, providing a standardised and secure environment across our locations, architected, and managed by Tū Ora and Telesmart;
• Tū Ora greatly improved their information security and risks by: 
  • Outsourcing security operations and incident response to the Medical IT Advisors managed Security Operation Centre service
  • Planning and architecting solutions that are secure and resilient against emerging cybersecurity threats
  • Leveraging Microsoft identity, email, endpoint, and cloud security controls to protect users and services against the usual phishing and malware attacks
  • Implementing a Web Application Firewall solution and continuous vulnerability scanning for all external services
  • Training and testing staff on cybersecurity threats and risks 

Security is now part of our organisational DNA, with a current Microsoft Security Score averaging at over 95%, anecdotally ranking Tū Ora as one of the highest rating organisations in New Zealand.

Tū Ora is also about to undertake a final digital maturity audit from international Health Informatics organisations HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society).

We are hoping for a HIMSS rating at Level 6 (out of 7) on the INFRAM (Infrastructure Adoption Model) framework.

Should this result be confirmed and awarded, then Tū Ora will be in the first healthcare organisation across the entire Asia Pacific region to achieve this prestigious recognition.

Next steps in the journey will take into consideration implementation of the New Zealand Health and Disability System Review findings and ongoing opportunities to better integrate with the DHBs, the Ministry of Health and partners across primary healthcare. 

If you want to contact eHealthNews.nz regarding this View, please email the editor Rebecca McBeth.

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