HNZ proposes major cuts to digital roles

NEWS - eHealthNews editor Rebecca McBeth

A proposal to significantly reduce the number of digital roles at Health NZ | Te Whatu Ora is under consultation at the national health organisation.

The change process started this week with all those whose roles are directly impacted – either by being disestablished or combined - sent emails on Monday and a consultation document due to be released to staff on Wednesday afternoon.

The restructure is part of a drive to save $100 million per year from the data and digital budget. eHealthNews understands up to half of data and digital roles will be affected.

Non-clinical staff who are not part of a union were offered voluntary redundancy in October. 

A staff member who asked to remain anonymous told eHealthNews that a number of roles have already disappeared from around the system in a “completely unplanned” way.

“When the person goes the role goes and so some really critical roles have disappeared,” they said.

“This is being done in a very short-term way with no long-term vision.”

They said the idea that data and digital staff are ‘back office’ and their loss will not affect the frontline is a myth and questioned whether the organisation will even be able to ‘keep the lights on’ with such a massive reduction in staff.

“We will not be making forward progress as it is hard to maintain even what we have currently got. We are going in a different direction from the rest of the world,” they said.

A Reddit thread started on Monday says the proposed staffing cuts would be “catastrophic to the point of regular major issues” as health IT is already seriously underfunded.

The post has attracted hundreds of comments saying the move will put patient safety at risk and make the system less efficient, ultimately costing more in the long-run.

One comment says the changes will result in millions of dollars of half-finished IT work being wasted and critical upgrades not being done, leaving the system vulnerable to cyber-attacks such as the Waikato DHB attack in 2021.

Sarah Dalton, executive director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS), told eHealthNews previously that New Zealand’s health system needs nationally coordinated, integrated digital systems as existing inefficiencies already directly impact patient care.

“The only way, other than staffing, to improve productivity and efficiency, in our view, is having really strong connected data and digital systems," she said.

Health NZ’s financial reporting from FY 2023/2024 provides scenarios for next year’s budget. Under Scenario 1 the 2023/34 budget for data and digital is $891m, which would reduce to $765m in the next financial year.

The document says the reduction in funding for ‘enabling functions’ such as data and digital is “reflecting commitments to prioritise resources to the frontline”.

These cuts are on top of the $380 million earmarked for data and digital health initiatives over the next five years that was recalled in the 2024 budget.

The Digital Health Association recently submitted a report to the Health Select Committee calling for an independent report into the funding cuts which it says “pose a dire threat to the sustainability and progress of New Zealand’s health system”.

“While many other countries continue to prioritise digital transformation to enhance productivity and patient care, New Zealand has taken a significant step back with recent funding cuts and the loss of IT capability and institutional knowledge—setbacks that could take years to recover from,” it says.

Chief executive Ryl Jensen says in the report that data and digital budget cuts will “disrupt care delivery across all levels of the system, diminish its capacity to adapt to future challenges, as well as make the system more vulnerable to breaches due to outdated and legacy technology”.

Health NZ says that while the consultation process is ongoing, they cannot speculate on how many roles may be impacted and no decisions will be made this side of Christmas.

Following the disestablishment of the chief data and digital role and the departure of Leigh Donoghue in November, Darren Douglass is acting chief information technology officer.

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