eHealthNews.nz: AI & Analytics

National Primary Care Dashboard MVP live

Friday, 14 March 2025  

NEWS - eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth 

Progress is underway on the National Primary Care Dashboard, with 13 Primary Health Organisations (PHOs) already committed to share data in phase one, providing insights across 3.1 million patients.

GPNZ is leading the development of the dashboard in partnership with DataCraft Analytics, with establishment funding provided by Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora.

The MVP dashboard includes foundational enrolment and population data with plans to include clinical indicators and sector insights by the middle of 2025.

GPNZ head of strategy and engagement – data and digital, Amanda Webb, says the platform provides the opportunity to collate the wealth of sophisticated data that PHOs hold to inform population health planning and improvement.

“Data doesn’t become valuable until it becomes information,” she says.

“There is a lot of data out there, but how do you use that in a collective way that tells not only the story about what is happening in primary care, but also where those challenges and opportunities are on the ground?” she says.

“That becomes information that the decision makers and the funders can take to inform their strategic planning and funding actions.”

Webb says the dashboard is a visualisation and reporting tool rather than a data warehouse, ensuring that patient and practice identities remain anonymous.

“The dashboard will not have patient or practice identifiable data. There is no identity of the patient in any way through the dashboard,” she explains.

“PHOs believe this is the right thing to be doing because we need to be telling our story in a more impactful way.”

Built on the DataCraft analytics platform—the same system that powers the Te Waipounamu PHOs dashboard, the dashboard allows data to be analysed by ethnicity, age, deprivation, and region, enabling stakeholders to compare different areas and trends in healthcare delivery.

Future updates will expand reporting capabilities to include clinical indicators such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and respiratory health, which will be particularly useful for winter planning, says Webb. 

Another focus of the dashboard is sector-wide insights into service utilisation, accessibility, and workforce distribution, which will help identify regional disparities and inform better resource allocation.

“Our goal is to have as much built into the dashboard as possible by June/ July,” Webb says, adding that eight to ten reports are scheduled for delivery in that timeframe.

Webb says the National Primary Care Dashboard will provide monthly updates and is being designed to complement existing Te Whatu Ora data, by offering new insights that are not currently part of standard performance metrics.

Another important aspect of the project is the development of a Māori data governance framework. 

“We are building a plan and an engagement approach to ensure that we are not just understanding what our obligations are around Māori data sovereignty and governance, but actually living and breathing it,” Webb says.

 

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