Digital tech key to future health system, Minister says

eHealthNews.nz: Sector

Digital tech key to future health system, Minister says

Thursday, 25 March 2021

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NEWS - eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth

Digital technology must become a key feature of the health system for patients and professionals, the Minister of Health says.

In a speech on 24 March, Andrew Little said the new shape and structure of the health and disability system will mean that proven technologies that improve care will be adopted faster and rolled out at scale.

The government’s ‘blueprint’ for the future will be announced in April, in response to the Health and Disability System Review’s recommendations.

One of the five key ‘shifts’ needed to enable this blueprint is that “digital services will provide more people the care they need in their homes and local communities”.

In his speech, Little said that in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the health system had achieved greater transformation of digital services in a matter of weeks than it had in many years.

This response showed what can be done and the challenge is “to build on this and take the opportunity to shift models for good”.

“We have already seen through the Covid-19 response how many services were able to shift quickly to using digital platforms, without a reduction in quality of care,” he said.

“If we get this right, the ways in which people access services will be more simple and more equitable, with greater innovation and choice for digital options bringing some services closer to homes than ever before..

“People will have access to virtual diagnostic services, primary care and increasingly to more specialist services wherever they live – meaning that many unnecessary trips to hospitals and clinics can be avoided”.

Little acknowledged that “service improvements and the uptake of new technologies has been sluggish” with “little shift of services from hospital to community environments, despite this being government policy for more than 20 years.”

He said funding arrangements provide little local discretion for innovation and are unpredictable, making long-term planning difficult.

“Split and fragmented responsibilities for everything from IT to human resources make it difficult to work across the system, share data and analytics, and identify and spread best practice,” said Little.

“The future system will need to have the right settings in place to make it easier to innovate, to be able to rapidly adopt new technology that can enhance people’s experience of health services, and to help people to better manage their health at home and in their communities.”

He also said the system needs to take a stronger population health approach, which means understanding what the population needs from services and the best ways to deliver on these needs.