Analytics and near real-time data drive transformation at Health NZ

FEATURE - Industry Innovation Article - Acumen BI

Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora has consolidated multiple systems inherited from over 20 supporting subsidiaries, District Health Boards and the Ministry of Health covering clinical, finance, payroll, supply chain, procurement and asset management data.   

Director of health analytics Delwyn Armstrong says the organisation now has nationally available Qlik apps driving transformation and monitoring performance. 

“Qlik acts as not only a data visualisation tool, but also a secure distributor of data across the country, a self-service tool for clinicians and managers to answer their own questions, a forecaster, scenario tester and even a data collection tool,” she says.   

Armstrong says health is hugely complex and data can be explored in a myriad of different ways depending on where you sit in the system. 

"The Planned Care application alone has over 200 pages within it, each of which can be mined for insights in thousands of ways." 

Real-time data replaces monthly spreadsheets 

Health NZ serves over 100,000 employees and manages over 6,000 digital systems, making data consolidation and visibility critical for effective operations and decision-making across the health system. 

Armstrong says when the organisation was established in July 2022, it required data and analytics in near real-time to understand waitlist sizes, acute demand and other care pathways.  

“We also need to understand how access to and quality of care vary by geographic area and for priority population groups,” she says. 

Previously, national data collections had a lag of two to three months, but the new analytics platform provides near real-time data feeds covering waitlists, emergency department presentations, inpatient events, operating room efficiency, GP referrals and hospital occupancy. 

“We have taken the approach of building apps underpinned by large data models at the patient level. That means the same app is used for identifying individuals to book through to reporting national performance by ethnic group, rural/urban and other geographic spread, age group, and many other ways,” explains Armstrong. 

“The near real-time data feeds coupled with the analytics platform have been key enablers for healthcare transformation; reducing waitlists, improving acute care responsiveness, improving cancer care pathways, and across all care, reducing unwarranted variation.” 

Improving patient outcomes 

Clinical innovations enabled by the new analytics function include opportunistic vaccination programmes linking vaccination data to real-time hospital admission data and identifying patients not receiving optimal treatment or with undiagnosed kidney disease.  

In February 2025, the World Health Organisation adopted a resolution on ‘promotion of kidney health and strengthening prevention and control of kidney disease’ encouraging member states "to strengthen and integrate the monitoring of kidney disease burden, access to care, quality of care and morbidity and mortality outcomes into national health information systems".    

Nephrologist Andy Salmon says using Qlik to create an interactive national chronic kidney disease dashboard means the country is on track to achieve these purposes, “using integrated data insights to reveal opportunities to optimise kidney disease care for whānau across Aotearoa New Zealand”. 

Armstrong says the platform also enables scenario testing and forecasting for health planners. Users can input variables, such as increasing patient appointments by 10 per week, to determine the impact this would have on wait lists. 

Finance expands access 

Health NZ’s Finance function has expanded access to Qlik apps from regional services to 3,000 budget managers across the organisation, providing real-time budget visibility, enabling managers to monitor cost centres independently. 

"Using these applications has transformed the way of working each month for the accounting team of accountants to review of results," says interim director of finance systems enablement Nicolas Harrison. 

"A key highlight has been a multi-purpose General Ledger app for 3,000 staff providing accurate and timely financial information, overcoming security, privacy, data literacy, training and governance challenges." 

He says the improved quality and access to financial data is a key part of cementing functional teams as enablers, allowing conversations to focus on actionable insights rather than data requests. 

The success could not have been achieved without the support of Acumen BI who contributed skills, knowledge, relationships and hard work to support the project. 

“The impact of our partners at Qlik and Acumen BI has been hugely integral and impactful,” Harrison says. 

A Qlik Cloud environment for national Procurement and Supply Chain analytics also includes 35 applications providing, for the first time, a comprehensive national view of procurement, supply chain and inventory data.   

Dan Gargiulo, Acumen BI managing director says the program is a great example of what is possible when strong data foundations, well-designed analytics, and committed teams come together. 

“We are not just consolidating data; we're giving people across the system the confidence to act on trusted, near-real-time insights quickly and consistently,” he says.

Image: Health NZ director of health analytics Delwyn Armstrong   

If you have any questions re the above feature article, please contact the editor Rebecca McBeth.

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