Shout out to the eHealth IT All Stars

NEWS - eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth

eHealthNews.nz is encouraging readers to show their appreciation for some of the unsung heroes of the health system’s response to Covid-19 – IT staff and teams.

Ministry of Health deputy director general Shayne Hunter is the first to says thanks on behalf of the Ministry, saying people who work in ICT, data, and digital technologies have played a vital role in the latest community outbreak of Covid-19. 

“People have come together quickly to solve the immediate problems and deliver new services, and maintain business continuity,” he tells eHealthNews. 

Hunter says a difference from previous outbreaks is that staff have been able to leverage a lot of what had been developed earlier in the response.

“We already had some technology in place and have reused processes from last time to stand up the capability required,” he explains. 

“We still needed to deliver kit to locations, support people to work remotely, and accelerate the delivery of planned features in some applications as well as adding new ones to support different needs arising as a result of the Delta variant.”

On top of that, there has been more non-Covid work to be done than last time. 

“Some very long hours have been worked and the effort has been huge,” he says. 

“The system is under pressure with growing demand for health services generally, the Covid response, the vaccination programme, the reforms and more, yet people still find the strength to go the extra mile. 

“Amazing people doing amazing mahi to keep the system going, fight the good fight against Covid-19 and to drive change. Thank you.”

If you have an individual or team you would like to thank, send your message to news@hinz.org.nz along with a short description (100 words or less) of the hard work you’ve appreciated.

Messages of appreciation

Arvida Group IT Team 

Thank you to the Arvida Group IT team – keeping 5000 older New Zealanders to stay in touch with their families during lockdown, supporting the Wellness teams across multiple households in 33 communities all around the country and building new functionality on the run, all working from home. You punch above your weight and your individual commitment is so appreciated. 

Rachel Hopkins – Head of Living Well Communities, Arvida Group

Orion Health IT services team

I may be biased but I think Orion Health has the best IT Services team ever. I have never worked with an IT team who are so willing to give things a go and make things work. Nothing is ever too much trouble for them, and everything is done with a calm and professional demeanour, as well as a sense of humour. 

In particular, they have really shown their mettle in the last 18 months. Like all IT teams last year, they were under intense pressure to 'keep the home fires burning' and maintain the performance of our infrastructure as we all adapted to working from home. 

With their hard work, Orion Health was able to support existing customers without interruption, as well as deploying to a new customer in a country we had never done business in. IT Services achieved all this when they were themselves a skeleton team. They are truly a credit to the Orion Health values 'We solve the unsolvable' and 'We get things done'. 

Nicole Gray, Orion Health communications manager

Covid-19 vaccination programme co-ordinators  
 
It was the middle of lockdown level 4 in Auckland and I had booked my first vaccination via BookMyVaccine ages ago, getting a date for mid-September. I was feeling a bit frantic about not being vaccinated so I rescheduled for an earlier date. I was impressed by the slick operation when I arrived at the vaccination centre where clear markings and friendly masked people showed me through the process. IT was invisible until I got to the person who vaccinated me, but that’s the way it should be. I knew it was one of the three pillars of a successful service – people, process and product – and was deeply appreciative of the work I knew went into such a slick operation. 

Karen Day – senior lecturer, Auckland University

If you would like to provide feedback on this news story, please contact the editor Rebecca McBeth.

Read more Profession news

Return to eHealthNews.nz home page