HiNZ Conference March 2022 goes hybrid

Health Informatics New Zealand (HiNZ) has made the difficult decision to change the format of the HiNZ Conference planned for March 2022. It is being changed into a hybrid format, with some elements running in-person and others changing to virtual.
 
Why are we making changes to the conference?
 
As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to evolve with new variants and uncertainty, we cannot feasibly plan and safely execute a large scale and logistically complex in person conference at this time. Our conference usually attracts over 1000 delegates, most of whom work in our health and disability system and who are involved on the ongoing response to Covid-19. We have a duty of care to the health and safety of our members, exhibitors, and staff. 
 
Over the past two years our team has reconfigured Digital Health Week NZ in multiple attempts to maintain our successful in-person event. It is not sustainable to continue postponing or reformatting this event in efforts to replicate a pre-Covid style conference.
 
In summary, we have concerns about our ability to deliver a safe and effective event under these conditions. 

When seeking solutions, the board and CEO considered many options, none of which were ideal.

What is changing?

To make it feasible to deliver a safe event we have decided to modify the March 2022 conference into a simpler format.

In a nutshell, the changes are:

• The workshops will run in-person at the InterContinental Hotel in Wellington on Tuesday 22 March and Wednesday 23 March 2022.
• The conference sessions will run in virtual format in late March 2022.
• The in-person exhibition hall will be cancelled.

We know this announcement will be deeply disappointing to many of you, and we share in your disappointment. For the past two years, the HiNZ team has worked very hard, trying to deliver the in-person conference experience you know and love - so making this final decision to go virtual has been very difficult for them.

Since the first lockdown in March 2020, the HiNZ team has launched CONNECT magazine, leadership summits, webinars, podcasts, networking events, fellowships, and a new HiNZ website. These new services for our members and our digital health community have continued to provide innovative ways of connecting people and sharing ideas and trends.

HiNZ recognises the value of face-to-face networking, and has scheduled seven smaller (less-complex) events, to enable our community to meet in-person throughout 2022. Please refer to the Leadership Summits page and the Networking events page.

We trust that the path we have chosen will sufficiently meet the connection needs of our digital health community, while also fulfilling our organisation's health and safety obligations.

What happens next?

If you are a delegate, speaker, or exhibitor, you will receive another email today from the HiNZ CEO with additional information. In the meantime, you may find this FAQ PAGE useful. 
 
Thank you for your understanding and patience while we work through the implications of this change with our customers, suppliers, and staff.

Karen Blake
HiNZ Board Chair