Primary care hub develops data platform to shift healthcare model

NEWS - eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth 

A new health data platform developed by Health Hub Project NZ (HHPNZ) integrates real-time patient data with social and environmental factors to provide clinicians with deeper insights into patient health.

GP and HHPNZ co-founder David Hill presented Swevnz® at Digital Health Week NZ in December 2024. 

Hill said the goal of the platform is to shift healthcare from a reactive model to a proactive, predictive, and patient-centred approach.

"The problems that we see in health care are increasing in complexity, and the systems that are confronting us are also increasing in complexity, so our ability to get anything done really increases in complexity," he said. 

The Palmerston North GP said that medical care alone is responsible for only a fraction of health outcomes.

 "Type 2 diabetes is a great example: probably only about 10 to 15 percent of the outcomes are determined by the doctor or clinician. Probably around 60 percent or more are determined by those social determinants of health," Hill explained.

He told the conference that Swevnz® aims to bridge this gap by triangulating multiple data sources to provide a more holistic view of patient health. 

The system integrates patient management system (PMS) data, geographic information systems (GIS), airborne hyperspectral imaging, and patient-generated data from wearables to enable clinicians to understand patients’ social and environmental contexts, and improve health outcomes.

"Rather than having to go through patients’ data and get little bits of snippets of information, I can bring everything together to help me in the context of an outcome that both I can accept and that the patient in front of me can accept," Hill told attendees.

“How can I make this into some form of equitable outcome and that improves the community access to what we do, not by just what I deliver as a clinician, but what we can deliver as a practice as a whole?

He said that one of the most powerful insights from Swevnz® has come from geographic data. 

"Out of all the things that we measure, the GIS data is much more able to predict hospitalisation rates than anything else," he said. 

"In our patient population, the biggest driver of hospitalisation, other than being old, is actually living in a cold, damp house."

The platform assigns a "quantum number" (QN) to each patient, summarising their health status based on hundreds of data points.

"A low number represents reasonable health for this person, a high number is poor health," said Hill. 

"When I bring the screen up, I have got a sidebar with a little bit of information there about the major drivers of hospitalisation for this individual, so I can focus on those things."

He said the new data platform also aims to reform healthcare delivery as the current model is too focused on doctors and medical interventions rather than addressing the broader social determinants of health. 

"We want to get away from supply-driven healthcare to something that really looks not just at what we deliver as healthcare providers, but what patients actually need," he said.

"We have got to have a far broader objective knowledge about our patients before we can make decisions about their health."

Hill concluded his presentation with a call to action for healthcare workers to take the lead in transforming the system. 

"It is up to us as healthcare workers to make the difference. We have to do it now. Do not wait for others to do it,” he said.

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