Budget invests $400 million in data and digital health

NEWS - eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth

The Budget, delivered on May 20, announced a $400 million investment in data and digital to enable health system transformation.

Also, up to $116 million will be invested over the next four years to transform the Ministry's Health Sector Agreements and Payments systems.  

The $400 million includes funding for the National Health Information Platform, which is renamed Hira.

Budget 2021 promises investment of $230 million for operating funding over five years and $170 million for capital funding over ten years for ‘Data and Digital Infrastructure and Capability’.

The budget papers say the funding will enable implementation of the health system reforms and improve health system performance. 

The operating funding for the 2021/22 financial year is $45 million, followed by $60 million in 2022/23, then $75 million in 2023/24 and $50 million in 2024/25.

There is also total capital funding over the next ten years of $170 million.

The nHIP programme as first envisaged was delayed by 12 months due to the impact of Covid-19.

A Request for Information was released last November, detailing seven requirements for tranche one of the project, which include a data service, consent service, consumer service and provider service.

The RFI described nHIP as a wide-ranging programme, which includes the “creation of digital products and services to enable access to an individual’s health information throughout the healthcare system”.

The Ministry's website says, "Hira will enable access to a virtual electronic health record as needed by drawing together a person's latest health data from trusted sources to create that data".

Deputy director-general data and digital Shayne Hunter said in March that with budget approval the Ministry of Health plans to start work on nHIP in earnest from the middle of this year.

The first tranche of the platform is expected to run until January 2024.

NZHIT chief executive Trent Lash says the industry body is delighted with the level of investment in healthcare transformation.

"As we look to recover from Covid-19, a joined up health system via electronic means will be pivotal to both consumers and healthcare providers creating a health ecosystem we all share in across the country," he says.

"NZHIT and its members fully support the Ministry of Health's vision for this national, standards-based, interoperable digital health foundation."

The Ministry's Health Sector Agreements and Payments systems manage between $100 million - $390 million a week and the last attempt to make significant upgrades was in 2006.

A Data and Digital Update from the Ministry of Health says the aim of the programme is to “introduce much needed change to the current sector agreements and payments model, ensuring processes and systems to manage provider payments are simpler, easier and able to be paid in a more timely and efficient way”.

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