Innovation and AI project team expands at Health NZ

NEWS - eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth 

The HealthX team within Health New Zealand is expanding with clinical champions driving implementation on the frontline.

The programme aims to deliver monthly roll-outs of digital solutions focused on addressing the five health targets plus mental health pressures.

Sonny Taite, director of digital innovation and AI, says the innovations must also be able to scale to more than one location and preferably more than one region.

A core cross-functional team of around 10 people is being built to do the early triage, assessment and validation of initiatives.

The next step is to develop a clinical advisory group to review tools specific to their area of expertise.

“We are developing a repeatable streamlined innovation process,” he tells eHealthNews. 

A third team is focused on delivery and will involve clinical champions such as chief medical officers and other clinicians on the frontline.

Taite says clinicians will drive all of the HealthX initiatives and are highly engaged in the project already.

"Our clinicians know the pressures that they face, they know the workforce pressures that impact them in their specialist area and they often have had the solutions for some time," he says.

"Clinicians are all quite innovative folk, so they make our job easier with their passion and their mindset.”

The programme's first major initiative involves rolling out AI scribe technology across emergency departments nationwide, building on successful trials at Hawke's Bay and Whanganui. 

Taite says the programme includes 100 licences for mental health crisis teams within EDs, with discussions about expanding to wider mental health teams where approximately a quarter of their workload involves administrative tasks.

Future ideas being considered include cardiology-focused digital innovations, diagnostics and imaging solutions, and dermatology applications to address workforce pressures in that specialty area.

Virtual care models are also a potential area for 2026, with HealthX looking at examples from NHS England and Australia, including virtual emergency departments and virtual hospital initiatives.

"We are starting to explore how virtual care could help manage patient flow and improve access to timely care, while reducing the need for hospital visits where appropriate," says Taite.

He says each monthly initiative undergoes its own business case approval process, with funding sourced through reprioritised investments rather than massive budget allocations. 

HealthX also identifies opportunities where funding already exists within specialist service areas but needs some coordination and focus, Taite says.

Image: Sonny Taite speaking at the Tech Users Summit

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