Workday establishes single source of truth for national health systems

SECTOR UPDATE - Workday

Cloud-native enterprise platforms can deliver the scalability and resilience needed to support Health New Zealand's modernisation efforts under the Health Digital Investment Plan (HDIP), says Workday’s Global Head of Healthcare Strategy John Kravitz.

The Plan aims to create a more connected health system across New Zealand, with digital modernisation identified as key to improving patient outcomes and operational efficiency.

Kravitz, a former healthcare CIO, says the Workday platform addresses the fragmentation that slows care.

"Most large health systems struggle under a patchwork of legacy systems that create bottlenecks," he says. 

"By establishing a single, authoritative source of truth, we allow the system to absorb large-scale organisational shifts seamlessly."

Kravitz points to Banner Health as an example, where consolidation reduced application volume by 50 per cent for more than 50,000 workers, saying this allows focus to be redirected back to patient outcomes while mitigating risk and reducing complexity.

Workday's unified architecture also delivers continuous innovation through two major updates annually without traditional re-implementation risks. 

"A national health system cannot afford upgrade freezes," Kravitz explains. 

"Because you cannot customise Workday, the upgrade process is expedited."

He says true resilience is built at the bedside and by automating identity lifecycle management through integrations with tools like SailPoint, the platform ensures healthcare workers have appropriate access immediately. 

Kravitz says Health NZ's connectivity goals under the HDIP mirror what health systems globally are striving for and to achieve this you need a secure open ecosystem hub. 

Workday offers an API-first architecture that flows worker data into clinical rostering and payroll systems in real-time. Rochester Regional Health used this approach to nearly triple their integration capacity to more than 130 secure connections.

Kravitz says the platform unifies workforce planning with financial data, allowing care model changes to be immediately reflected in recruitment pipelines and budgets. 

And when pay equity or regulatory shifts occur, customers can update entire structures and pay rules without writing a single line of code.

The platform also supports rapid role re-profiling as health systems shift toward hospital-at-home and community-based care models, which also form part of New Zealand’s HDIP.

Kravitz says security concerns are top of mind for health systems around the world and New Zealand is not immune as shown by a number of high-profile health system breaches in early 2026.

“Workday applies the same security standards used for government and federal agency customers globally,” he says, adding that the era of Agentic AI raises a critical question.

“How do we innovate without exposing data to the public internet? At Workday, your data never leaves the 'closed wall' of our environment,” he says.

Source: Workday media release

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