OctansCare is proud to announce the successful delivery of a completely redesigned website and online booking experience for Ka Ora Telecare. The new digital platform has been created to provide a more accessible, user-friendly experience, making it easier for patients to find information, access services, and book appointments online.

The project focused on more than just a visual refresh. Working closely with the Ka Ora team, OctansCare developed a digital experience that supports Ka Ora's unique model of care while improving navigation, simplifying the booking process, enhancing accessibility, and ensuring the website performs seamlessly across desktop and mobile devices. The result is a modern digital experience that reflects Ka Ora's commitment to delivering high-quality healthcare while making it easier for people to connect with the services they need.

Unlike many telehealth providers, Ka Ora operates with a bespoke service model that requires patients to meet specific eligibility criteria and follow tailored booking pathways based on their individual circumstances. To support this, OctansCare designed and implemented a customised booking experience that seamlessly incorporates eligibility checks and patient screening processes, ensuring patients are guided to the right services quickly and efficiently.

"At OctansCare, we believe digital healthcare should remove barriers, not create them. This project was about understanding how patients interact with healthcare services and designing an experience that feels simple, intuitive, and welcoming from the very first click. We are incredibly proud to have partnered with Ka Ora on this transformation and look forward to seeing the positive impact it has on their patients and community." Malik Executive Lead, OctansCare

Ka Ora praised the collaboration and the outcome of the project.

"Ka Ora engaged the Octans team to deliver our new website, and we were very impressed with the professionalism, reliability, and responsiveness they demonstrated throughout the project. Their team consistently delivered on time, communicated clearly, and made the entire process seamless from start to finish. Nothing was ever too difficult, and they were incredibly easy to work with, providing solutions quickly and efficiently whenever needed. Their commitment to delivering a high-quality outcome was evident at every stage, and they approached this significant project with a genuine focus on achieving the best result for our organisation. We are extremely satisfied with the final outcome of our new website and would not hesitate to recommend the Octans team to others." Hayley McConnell, General Manager Ka Ora 

This project reflects OctansCare's continued commitment to helping healthcare providers modernise the way they engage with patients through thoughtful digital experiences, human-centred design, and innovative virtual care solutions. As healthcare continues to evolve, OctansCare remains focused on delivering technology that improves access to care, enhances patient engagement, and supports healthcare organisations in providing better outcomes for the communities they serve.

Source: OctansCare media release

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CareHQ is marking more than a quarter of a million consultations delivered to New Zealanders, reflecting growing demand for faster, more accessible healthcare and additional support for general practice. 

For many patients, virtual care is reducing wait times, improving access outside standard clinic hours, and providing timely support when in-person appointments are difficult to secure. At its peak, CareHQ is now delivering over 500 consultations per day, helping patients across the country connect with a GP or nurse when they need care.

“Reaching this milestone is really about the number of people we’ve been able to help,” says CareHQ Chief Executive Brett Butler. “Every consultation represents someone getting timely advice, treatment, or reassurance, often when access would otherwise have been limited.”

CareHQ’s expanded clinical model is also helping ease pressure on its GPs. Over 10% of patients are now seen by nurses, who support a wide range of conditions including dedicated sore-throat, UTI, sick-note and sexual health clinics for those needing same-day care. This allows GPs to focus on more complex and acute cases.

CareHQ Clinical Director, Dr Firdaus Aziz says the service continues to attract high-quality clinicians, with referrals from existing team members proving to be a large source of new GP recruitment.

“The flexibility to work from anywhere in New Zealand - or even overseas - and choose preferred days and hours means we have been able to retain many experienced GPs in the workforce. That flexibility is helping fuel our continued growth.”

CareHQ continues to broaden the services available through virtual care. Recent additions include a GP-supported bowel screening service, with a spot and skin check service launching in the coming month. These services aim to make it easier for New Zealanders to access early detection and preventative care without unnecessary barriers.

As demand for healthcare grows, virtual services like CareHQ are playing an increasing role in improving access, supporting general practice, and helping patients receive timely care wherever they are.

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The rapid rise of connected medical devices such as continuous glucose monitors and smartphone apps that control insulin pumps is leading New Zealand's medicines regulator to rethink how patients get critical safety alerts and recall notices.

Chris James, group manager at Medsafe, told the MTANZ conference on June 30 that while digital connectivity opens new channels for reaching patients to notify them of safety issues or recalls, it also creates significant gaps that regulators and importers or manufacturers need to address.

The devices increasingly allow companies to contact patients directly through apps or through the device itself, which can assist with recalls but also introduces new uncertainties.

"How many people will get an alert and just push it without looking, how many people will just ignore an alert, how many people are not using an app when they should?" he asked.

James said the stakes are high as devices like continuous glucose monitors, which can feed data directly into insulin pumps, carry serious risks if a safety issue is not addressed. 

"With some of these devices, if you have issues, they can be very serious very quickly, so it is about trying to make sure we are getting out to every single patient who may be impacted."

Medsafe's medical device team is just three people responsible for all post-market regulation of medical devices in New Zealand. James said they rely heavily on the companies importing or manufacturing devices to communicate quickly and accurately when issues arise.

James told attendees that recall letters must be approved by Medsafe before being distributed and the regulator also expects a report back. 

He said this is becoming increasingly important as direct patient contact through apps and devices becomes more common, raising questions about how many patients were successfully reached and whether there is any ongoing risk.

Image: Chris James, group manager at Medsafe, speaking at the MTANZ conference

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Healthpoint has launched a free AI-assisted service navigation tool that helps New Zealanders find health services by describing what they need in their own words.

‘Ask Healthpoint’ uses Healthpoint's directory of 12,000 verified health services to return specific, locally relevant results such as opening hours, contact details, and whether an appointment is needed.

"It is one of the first of its kind," says Healthpoint chief executive Kate Rhind. 

"It is built to search through the trusted national health data on Healthpoint. It has been rigorously tested by both end users and service providers over the past 12 months. It is free, available now, and can be used in multiple languages."

The tool is designed for people who may not know the right clinical term or where to start. Ask Healthpoint identifies which types of services match what someone has described and presents a curated list of nearby options with practical details.

"A person could simply say or type something like 'I have a sore ear' and Ask Healthpoint will provide available options in the area," Rhind explains. 

The tool was developed over 12 months with 25 rounds of testing across more than 600 real-world scenarios, including sensitive areas such as mental health and emergency care. 

Associate health minister and minister for mental health Matt Doocey says it addresses a well-documented barrier to care. 

"Not knowing where to go or who to talk to has been reported as the reason for unmet mental health needs in one third of children and more than a quarter of adults. This new platform will help remove those barriers and guide people to the right support," Doocey says.

The tool supports te reo Māori, Samoan, and many other languages and Healthpoint says language recognition will keep improving over time.

"Ask Healthpoint is a navigation tool, not a replacement for your doctor, nurse, or helpline," Rhind says. 

"Its goal is to make it even simpler to find a health service that can help you, no matter the time of day, no matter the type of health concern, even if you don't understand medical terms or English is not your first language."

For people in rural and smaller communities, Healthpoint says the tool can make a meaningful difference by surfacing options such as online GP consultations, pharmacies, helplines, and community health providers that people may not have known were available to them.

Organisations can embed the tool on their own websites as a widget, integrated with a single line of code. 

If you would like to provide feedback on this news story, please contact the editor Rebecca McBeth.

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Stuff’s inaugural Health of the Nation survey caught my attention, not because the findings were surprising, but because they put numbers around something many of us in health see every day: people are surrounded by information, yet still searching for confidence. 

When people have a health question, they increasingly turn first to whatever is fastest and easiest to reach. Sixty-three percent of us turn first to Google or similar search tools, ahead of seeing a doctor at 56 percent. One in five turn first to an AI platform such as ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude, rising to one in four among those aged 18–44. 

Yet trust runs the other way. Doctors top the list at 89 percent, nurses at 86 percent and pharmacists at 83 percent, while search engines sit at 52 percent, AI at 28 percent and social media at 18 percent. 

The behaviour-trust gap

It is tempting to read this as a disconnect between what Kiwis do and who they believe, but I would argue the opposite: people are behaving rationally. 

With a health worry at 11pm, you reach for what is instant, free and already in your hand as that is also the moment when the formal system is hardest to reach. 

Seventy percent of us have delayed care because of cost, access, or uncertainty about whether a problem is worth a clinician’s time. When the front door is that hard to open, the phone wins.

That behaviour–trust gap is not a moral failing, it is a design brief. 

The same pattern is emerging overseas. Pew Research Center’s April 2026 report found that health care providers remain the most-used and most-trusted source of health information for Americans, even as social media and AI chatbots become part of the mix. 

Trust has not disappeared, but expectations about access, immediacy and convenience have changed. 

Clinical guidance

Information is easy to find, but the help needed to make sense of it is not. 

People are looking for reassurance, context and guidance about what to do next. That is what good clinicians provide, and why they continue to command such high levels of trust. 

AI sharpens this tension rather than resolving it as many tools people use sit outside the privacy, accountability and clinical governance frameworks they associate with healthcare. 

As more people seek health support through digital channels, trust will depend not only on the accuracy of information, but also on how those services are governed, how clearly their limits are explained, and how safely they hand people on to human care when needed. 

The question is not whether people will use AI for health information as they already are. The more useful question is what people are telling us through that behaviour: they want health support that is immediate, conversational and available when they need it. 

They are also telling us that trusted guidance needs to show up where people are, rather than expecting people to find their way back to traditional entry points every time. 

Turning information into action

For digital health, that has important implications. Clinical accuracy, governance and evidence remain essential, but information alone is rarely enough. 

People need help understanding what information means for them, what actions they can take next, and when they need professional care. 

The challenge is not finding information, it is knowing what to do with it, and that is where the next opportunity sits: helping people turn information into confidence and action. 

Understanding a diagnosis; preparing for an appointment; managing a condition between visits; knowing when symptoms can be managed at home and when they need urgent attention. 

This is the space between information and care. It is also where organisations like Healthify He Puna Waiora and Health Navigator Charitable Trust focus much of their effort. The goal is not to replace clinicians or services, it is to help whānau turn knowledge into skills, confidence and action they can realistically take. 

We see a similar pattern among rangatahi. Youthline’s 2026 State of the Generation report found that many young people turn first to parents or carers and friends, social media, and increasingly AI when they need support. Yet formal services such as counselling and helplines continue to be seen as among the most effective channels of support. 

The equity gap

None of this is automatic. Digital access, health literacy, disability, language, cultural relevance and trust in institutions all shape who benefits. Built carelessly, digital tools can widen inequities. Built well, they can strengthen the relationships people have with the healthcare professionals they trust most. 

Clinically reviewed, plain-language resources such as Healthify’s can help people prepare for appointments, understand their conditions and treatments, manage them between visits, and recognise when to seek urgent care. That supports primary, secondary and community care; it does not replace clinicians or services. 

The future of digital health will not be defined by who publishes the most information. It will be defined by who helps people use it safely, wisely and at the right time. 

The goal is not to win people back from Google or persuade them not to use AI. People will continue to use the tools that are convenient, useful and available to them. 

The goal is to ensure that when someone reaches for the fastest answer, a trustworthy, clinically governed, plain-language one is there to meet them and that it knows when to hand them to a person. 

For those building these tools, governance is not a feature to bolt on later and for those commissioning them, it should be one of the first things to ask for. 

For the rest of us, it means showing up in the spaces people already use, rather than ceding them. 

Information is everywhere. Trusted guidance, and the judgment to know when a human is needed, is what is worth building. 

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Partnership supports expanded pharmacy services, connecting medications, service bookings, rewards, and patient engagement through the Centrik platform.

Building on a longstanding partnership, Webtools and Green Cross Health are expanding their digital health collaboration into community pharmacy through a connected digital platform supporting pharmacy services, medications, and patient engagement across the Unichem and Life Pharmacy network.

The partnership comes as community pharmacy takes on an expanded role in healthcare delivery, following recent Government investment in pharmacist-led services and the establishment of the Extended Pharmacy Services Fund to improve access to care through pharmacies nationwide.

Representing more than 300 pharmacies across New Zealand, Green Cross Health pharmacists dispense more than 36 million prescription items annually and provide a growing range of health and wellness services in communities throughout the country.

Available across web, iOS, and Android, and powered by the Centrik platform, the Unichem and Life Pharmacy app enables customers to access healthcare services, manage medications, request prescription repeats, receive notifications, and engage with the Living Rewards loyalty programme through a single digital experience.

With more than two million Living Rewards members, the platform brings together pharmacy services, medications, rewards, and customer engagement through a single digital front door. Pharmacy medication connections continue to be rolled out across the network as participating pharmacies are onboarded.

The platform supports Green Cross Health’s Care + Advice Health Hub strategy by making it easier for customers to discover and access care, while providing pharmacies with the digital tools needed to manage appointments, communications, service delivery, and patient engagement.

Rachael Newfield, Chief Executive Officer of Green Cross Health, said:

“Community pharmacy is playing an increasingly important role in how healthcare is delivered in New Zealand. As pharmacists take on a broader role in supporting patients and delivering funded services, it’s important that we make those services easy to access and easy to navigate.”

“Digital is now a critical part of that experience. Whether it’s booking a service, managing medications, or connecting with your local pharmacy, our focus is on making healthcare simpler and more accessible for the people we serve.”

The Centrik platform already supports more than 200 pharmacy locations across New Zealand and has facilitated more than 70,000 healthcare appointments. More than 11,000 pharmacy app users have been onboarded since launch, demonstrating growing demand for digital access to pharmacy services.

Al Duncan, Chief Growth Officer of Webtools, said:

“We’re excited to be partnering with Green Cross Health to help build the digital foundations for the next generation of pharmacy services.”

“Our vision for Centrik has always been to provide patients with a single digital front door to their healthcare. Whether that’s pharmacy, general practice, or community care, the experience should feel connected and seamless.”

“With more than two million Living Rewards members and over 200 pharmacy locations already supported through the platform, we’re seeing that vision begin to reach real scale.”

The partnership represents a significant expansion of the Centrik platform beyond general practice and demonstrates how connected digital experiences can support healthcare delivery across pharmacy, primary care, and community health settings.

As community pharmacy continues to evolve, Webtools and Green Cross Health believe digital infrastructure will play an increasingly important role in improving access to care, supporting service delivery, and creating a more connected healthcare experience for New Zealanders.

Source: Centrik media release

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Online therapy platform, Just a Thought, is making it easier for Kiwis to look after their mental health, with the launch of two new free courses: Coping with Stress and Just a Pause – Intro to Mindfulness.

Developed with subject-matter experts and whānau with lived experience, both courses offer a practical, accessible option for early-intervention support, helping people build resilience and strengthen wellbeing before things get harder. 

Coping with Stress is a four-lesson course grounded in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) principles. It helps tāngata whai ora understand their own stress responses and build resilience, through practical, evidence-based techniques.  

“The course recognises that while stress is unavoidable, how we respond to it is within our control,” says Just a Thought communications and engagement lead, Kimberley de Jardine. 

Just a Pause – Intro to Mindfulness is a four-lesson course that supports tāngata whai ora to feel more grounded and calm. It teaches practical mindfulness skills to help  connect to the present moment, rather than getting caught up in worries and unhelpful thoughts. 

Both courses are free to access and have been made possible through funding from Health NZ | Te Whatu Ora’s Mental Health Innovation Fund. 

How to access the free courses

The Coping with Stress course is available at justathought.co.nz/stress.

The Intro to Mindfulness course is available at justathought.co.nz/mindfulness.

Source: Just a Thought media release

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Australia's My Health Record system has more than doubled its weekly pathology result uploads and the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) is soon launching  push notifications in the 1800MEDICARE app, says its chief digital officer.

Peter O'Halloran spoke at the Digital Health Festival in Melbourne in May where he said that over the last three years weekly uploads of pathology results to My Health Record have more than doubled. 

The agency has also released Australia's first national digital health standards framework and is preparing to launch push notifications for test results in the 1800MEDICARE app within months.

The app allows users to access and store electronic prescriptions, check pathology and diagnostic test results, share immunisation records and view their medical history.

"What is going live in the next few months is going to be like every other app on my phone where I get push notifications," O'Halloran said. 

"Up pops a notification saying you have got a new diagnostic test result or a discharge summary has been released."

The notifications will also include proactive health reminders, such as flu vaccination prompts, with direct links to health service booking functionality.

He said consumer engagement with the system has increased substantially as the agency recently celebrated over one million downloads of the MEDICARE app, with users increasingly accessing their health information through the app and the website.

O'Halloran said clinicians are also using My Health Record to provide better care by accessing information from other healthcare providers, including discharge summaries and blood work results when patients present for emergency care.

"Often the benefit of My Health Record really is not for the consumer, it is often the clinicians using it to provide care," he explained. 

"Seeing what happened elsewhere, seeing a discharge summary for a presentation that you never knew occurred, seeing some blood work that might have been done in community when the consumer turns up at three in the morning in ED."

He told the conference that the ADHA has released its first national digital health standards framework, which adopts a principle-based approach, prioritising use of international standards.

"We always try to adopt international standards rather than reinvent the wheel and make things different in Australia," O'Halloran said. 

"It makes it so much harder to share with everyone else."

The framework covers clinical safety, security, privacy, and terminology standards relevant to Australia's healthcare system.

Image: Peter O'Halloran 

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Valentia Technologies today announced a major enhancement to its indici platform: a fully integrated, patient-controlled dispensing and pharmacy fulfilment workflow designed to support modern telehealth services and specialist prescribing models, with real-time medication safety verification built into every step.

As telehealth adoption continues to grow, healthcare providers face an increasingly common challenge. A patient may be prescribed a total quantity of medication that is clinically appropriate, yet only wish or be able to obtain part of that prescription at a given time. Affordability, personal preference, treatment adherence, delivery timing and safe dispensing practice often mean patients prefer to receive their medication across multiple dispensing episodes rather than in a single supply.
The new indici functionality lets patients, clinicians and pharmacies take part in a single digital workflow that supports safe, compliant and flexible multi-part dispensing of prescribed medicines, including those commonly prescribed through telehealth services. By connecting steps that were previously coordinated by hand, it reduces administrative effort, avoids unnecessary repeat consultations, and removes the manual back-and-forth between prescribers, patients and pharmacies.

“Patients have told us for years that they want more control over how and when they receive their medication - but that flexibility cannot come at the expense of safety. By building real-time verification into every step, we have made multi-part dispensing something clinicians and pharmacists can trust, not just something that is convenient for patients. That balance is what makes this clinically sound rather than simply easier.” - Sufian Mehmood, indiciLite Product Lead, Valentia Technologies

Real-time safety through MDR and NZePS integration

 A cornerstone of the new functionality is its deep integration with New Zealand’s national medicines infrastructure. Prescriptions flow through the New Zealand ePrescription Service (NZePS), while the Medication Data Repository (MDR) provides the source of truth for what remains available to dispense.

Before a patient is permitted to place an order, indici verifies in real time against MDR records how much medication remains available under the prescription. The same check is repeated before a pharmacy dispenses. This two-point verification is designed to prevent over-supply and ensure that every dispensing episode stays within the limits set by the prescriber.

“Staged or partial dispensing has always been clinically valuable, but the coordination has historically been manual and error-prone. Having the available balance checked automatically at both ordering and dispensing gives prescribers and pharmacists real confidence that supply matches the original prescribing intent.” - Brendon Ogilvy, NZ Managing Director, Alternaleaf NZ Clinic 

Availability

The new dispensing and pharmacy integration capabilities are available now to eligible indici customers and service providers. By bringing teleconsultation, prescribing, payment, dispensing, delivery and medication-safety verification into one connected workflow, indici extends its role as a core health technology platform for New Zealand primary care and telehealth.

To learn more or arrange a demonstration, contact the Valentia Technologies team.

Source: Valentia Technologies media release

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One in five New Zealanders now turns to artificial intelligence platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude as their first port of call for health information, according to Stuff's inaugural Health of the Nation study.

The figure rises to 25 percent for those aged 18-44, but trust in AI-generated health advice remains low at just 28 percent.

The study of 1,480 New Zealanders reveals 63 percent of Kiwis turning to Google or similar search engines for health-related information. This is higher than those who go to an actual doctor (56 percent) or health websites hosted by organisations like the Ministry of Health or WebMD (35 percent).

Tania Moerenhout, a GP and senior lecturer at Otago University’s Bioethics Department, says the findings reflect broader international trends. 

"I am not surprised that people turn to it for health information, you see AI now entering all aspects of life" she says. 

Moerenhout says that AI has become increasingly difficult to avoid, as these days if you run a search on Google, the first thing that pops up is the AI response.

However, the low trust levels may indicate a “healthy scepticism”.

"I think that could be a good sign that people are not just taking it at face value, but really questioning it," she says. 

"People are aware that it comes with the risk of hallucinations: generative AI can tell you things that are wrong."

The human touch

Despite the digital shift, the survey shows medical professionals maintain overwhelming trust among New Zealanders. Doctors come out on top with 89 percent trusting them for health information, followed by nurses at 86 percent and pharmacists at 83 percent. Search engines achieve 52 percent trust, with social media at just 18 percent.

Chris Paton, associate professor at the Liggins Institute and the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Auckland University, says there is growing use of consumer AI chatbots by people looking for information about health, rather than directly visiting websites that have reliable information or talking with a healthcare professional.

"There are still considerable concerns with privacy, security, and inaccurate information produced by consumer AI chatbots," he says. 

"The low level of trust in AI shown by the survey demonstrates that most people have already experienced AI making errors so are rightly cautious."

Rosie Dobson, associate professor at Auckland University’s School of Population Health, says the results are not surprising and reflect what researchers are seeing in their work. 

“People are trying AI because it is accessible, but when it comes to their healthcare, they still want a human to be the one responsible for their care,” she says,

“Trust in health services and health professionals directly impacts patient engagement with health services and patient health outcomes. Current low levels of trust in AI further highlight the need for a careful approach to the use of AI in healthcare to ensure patient trust is not harmed, and the benefits of AI in healthcare can be realised.”

Enter Dr ChatGPT

Moerenhout says ‘Dr ChatGPT’ has already entered the clinic room. She recently had a very young patient who had clearly been interacting with an AI platform and came in with certain ideas about what was wrong.

She says this experience is similar to the earlier emergence of ‘Dr Google,’ but with additional complexities in terms of hallucinations and some people going down rabbit holes.

"The sycophancy problem is something we encounter as AI wants to please the user and so it is not going to tell you that you are wrong usually,” Moerenhout explains.

She says that for healthcare providers, these developments create both opportunities and challenges and she welcomes open discussion about AI-generated information.

"If you have got a shared decision making process going with your patient and a good relationship with your patient, I think you can have a conversation about that,” she tells eHealthNews.

"But the more we have this conversation, the more time it takes and we already work in a health system, especially in primary care, that is really time poor."

Current and future state

Paton says things may improve in the future as it is likely that soon free consumer-facing AI chatbots will be able to deliver reliable health information for the public which will help people find health information more easily.

"In the meantime, I would recommend that people continue to use the existing verifiable websites from the government and healthcare providers when trying to find information about healthcare conditions," he says. 

"If their concern is serious or urgent, then they should phone 111, Healthline, or book an appointment with a healthcare professional rather than using an AI chatbot."

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

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Bupa New Zealand is rolling out an app designed to connect families with loved ones in aged care.

Blua is being piloted across four Bupa facilities and provides real-time updates on residents' daily activities, meals, mood and care. 

Josh Byers, head of customer and transformation at Bupa New Zealand, says the platform aims to solve fundamental challenges around connection, transparency and accountability in aged care.

"Many families are not in the same town or city as their loved one, so they are not fortunate enough to be able to just pop in to a care home," he says. 

"Many of the family involved are what we call the ‘sandwich generation’, where they have dependence on both sides. They have got their kids or grandkids, and then they have their parents, and it is pretty hard for them on a daily basis to be connected with their loved one."

The app has been in development for around a year and has been co-designed with families and residents.

Blua pulls information from Bupa's existing clinical systems as well as incorporating new digital touchpoints created for the platform. Staff now document additional things including photographs of meals and more detailed records of a resident’s day for family to see.

It allows families to see when their loved one was bathed, what mood they were in, what they had for lunch, and which activities they participated in throughout the day. 

Byers tells eHealthNews that by recording all of this information digitally, it creates a higher level of accountability and transparency than traditional paper-based systems.

However, not all family members want the same level of information and future versions will allow users to customise which metrics and updates they want to see.

Byers says initial feedback has been "phenomenal," with families particularly liking the increased transparency and accountability, saying the real-time updates have increased their trust.

The app is the foundation of Bupa's broader digital health strategy for older people in New Zealand and plans are to eventually integrate medical-grade wearables, alert systems, and remote health services through the platform.

"We believe there is a real opportunity whereby Bupa plays a far bigger part in the healthcare sector for older people," he says. 

Blua is currently focused on family communication, but Bupa plans to expand functionality for independent living residents in retirement villages.

The future could include 24/7 monitoring through wearables, medication reminders, digital physiotherapy sessions, and video consultations, he says.

Image: Blua app screenshots

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National telehealth provider CareHQ has expanded its offering to include bowel screening, in collaboration with accredited clinical laboratory IGENZ.

Launched to coincide with Bowel Cancer Awareness Month, CareHQ CEO Brett Butler says the new service provides New Zealanders with an option to proactively check their bowel health before becoming eligible for the national screening programme.

For New Zealanders in their 30s and 40s, bowel cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths, and our rates are increasing faster than most other places in the world¹.

“Our screening test is non-invasive, convenient, and highly accurate. When bowel changes are detected early, treatment outcomes and survival rates improve significantly1,” says Butler.

Unlike traditional faecal immunochemical tests (FIT) that primarily look for traces of blood in the stool, the CareHQ screening kit utilises advanced molecular technology to identify early biological changes. The test detects specific markers in cells naturally shed from the lining of the bowel, which can indicate the presence of precancerous polyps or early-stage cancer - often before any physical symptoms or bleeding occur.

CareHQ Clinical Director Dr Firdaus Aziz emphasises this technology is a tool for proactive health management rather than a replacement for diagnostic procedures.

“This service is specifically designed for asymptomatic individuals - those who feel well but want to be proactive about their health or have reached a milestone age where they want extra peace of mind,” says Dr. Aziz. 

“It is not intended for people currently experiencing symptoms, who should consult a GP immediately. Because CareHQ is a national telehealth provider, we offer wraparound services to everyone across New Zealand. We work closely with patients and their regular GPs to ensure any positive results are followed up with the appropriate clinical pathways, including referrals for colonoscopies where necessary.”

The bowel screening service is now available to the public. It can be purchased directly via carehq.co.nz or through the MySouthernCross app for eligible members.

Source: CareHQ media release

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Digi-physical healthcare provider Tend Health has entered into an agreement to buy the medical division of Green Cross Health Limited, integrating 65 medical centres operating under The Doctors brand onto Tend's technology platform.

This will expand Tend's patient base by more than 400,000 registered patients, bringing the combined network to over 550,000 patients across 90 clinics throughout New Zealand. 

Launched in 2020, Tend describes itself as a ‘digi-physical’ provider of care. Fifteen of its 25 current clinics use its technology platform, which centres around an app where patients can book video consultations, access their medical records and get repeat prescriptions online.

The transaction has backing from iwi investors, with Ngāi Tahu Holdings increasing its shareholding in Tend and Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei also expanding its stake. New shareholder Nāti Growth and existing shareholder Ahuahu Group are joining the investment group, making iwi investors one of Tend's largest shareholder groups.

James Robinson, co-chief executive and co-founder of Tend Health says the transaction maintains local ownership of primary care infrastructure, "while continuing to build a long-term healthcare business focused on supporting access, improving patient health outcomes and sustainable primary care”.

Todd Moyle, chief executive of Ngāi Tahu Holdings, says his organisation is excited to support a New Zealand-owned business building a technology-enabled platform. 

"Over the past few years, Tend has continued to invest in technology that supports primary care, with a focus on improving access, patient experience and continuity of care," he says.

Lisa Davis, chief executive of Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, says, “we see primary care as critical social infrastructure, and this proposed acquisition reflects our commitment to long-term investments that are responsive to the needs of whānau, communities and patients across the motu”.

The transaction is subject to Green Cross Health shareholder approval and is expected to complete by 31 July 2026. 

Patients will continue to be cared for by their existing clinical teams and medical centres and until completion, both businesses continue to operate as usual.

Image: Tend Health Founders: L-R  Josh Robb (COO), Cecilia Robinson ONZM (Co-CEO), James Robinson (Co-CEO) and Dr Mataroria Lyndon (Director of Population Health and Equity)

If you would like to provide feedback on this news story, please contact the editor Rebecca McBeth.

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Birds sit at an important interface between animal, human, and environmental health. Backyard flocks, aviary birds, and some companion birds can be a vector for zoonotic disease risks.  These include: salmonellosis, psittacosis, campylobacteriosis, and avian influenza-related concerns. While the absolute risk varies by species and setting, the public health dimension is real. Poor access to knowledgeable avian care does not just affect the individual bird; it can also reduce early recognition of risks to households, flocks, and the wider community.

Distance compounds all of this. New Zealand’s geography, rural client base, and limited number of veterinarians with extensive avian expertise means that many owners face long travel times or no practical access at all. Yet even if a veterinary clinic is available, transport itself can be a welfare problem. For sick birds, capture, handling, confinement, temperature changes, and prolonged travel may significantly worsen clinical condition. In some cases, the journey may be more dangerous than the initial disease process.  Biosecurity also needs to be considered.  Sick birds with potential zoonotic diseases should not be transported to help minimise risk of disease transfer to the general public.

Therefore, a more flexible model of care matters. Telehealth, when used appropriately, can help bridge the gap between owners and knowledgeable avian veterinarians. It allows earlier triage, detailed history-taking, review of husbandry, visual assessment, follow-up, and guidance on whether transport is truly necessary. It is not a replacement for all in-person care, but it is an important tool for reducing unnecessary stress and bringing more bird owners into a responsible veterinary framework rather than leaving them outside it.

Lee’s story with Griffin shows exactly why access to knowledgeable avian care matters.  Unable to get assistance for her beloved pet chicken from local veterinary clinics, Lee was able to arrange a telehealth consultation with Avian Empire, a veterinary clinic with extensive expertise in avian medicine.  Griffin had become critically unwell with suspected botulism and was, by Lee’s account, fully paralysed, able to do little more than breathe. What followed was not a quick fix but weeks of intensive supportive care: constant nursing, assisted feeding and hydration, close monitoring, and ongoing guidance through a long recovery. For Lee, the challenge was not simply finding any veterinary contact, but being connected through telemedicine to people with the right avian expertise who could help her make sense of the case, support her practically and emotionally, and stay involved across the full course of recovery. Publicly, Lee has credited Avian Empire with helping her get Griffin through that paralysis, and Griffin has since gone on to live a happy life and even have chicks of her own — a powerful example of how timely remote access to the right expertise can change an outcome completely.

As in human health care, the problem for bird owners in New Zealand is often not simply accessing a veterinarian. It is accessing a veterinarian with the knowledge, confidence, and practical experience to manage avian cases well.

In practical terms, this model is built around simple, familiar technology: phones, photographs/videos, Zoom consultations, digital history forms, and owner-recorded observations from the home environment. It can also include home sensors such as temperature and humidity monitors, digital scales for body weight trends, and coop or pen cameras. Avian Empire is now looking at a web camera service that would allow better visualisation of bird patients recovering at home in dedicated "hospital pens", as well as an app that lets flock owners track key health indicators such as vaccination history, appetite, water intake, droppings, egg production, mortality, behaviour, weight, and treatment responses, giving the veterinary team better longitudinal data between consultations.

Bird medicine is not just small animal medicine applied to a different species. Birds have unique anatomy, physiology, behaviour, husbandry needs, and disease patterns. They mask illness, deteriorate rapidly, and can be highly vulnerable to stress during handling and transport. Clinical decisions that may seem straightforward in dogs and cats can be quite different in birds.  A general practice veterinarian may be highly competent in companion animal medicine and still have limited capabilities for avian patients. That is not a criticism of general practice; it is simply the reality of a field that requires particular experiences and clinical infrastructure.

This distinction matters because poor experiences have consequences. When bird owners feel dismissed, receive advice that does not fit the species, or are told to transport fragile birds long distances for issues that might have been assessed remotely, trust is eroded. Some owners then delay seeking care, rely on online forums, attempt treatment themselves, or stay entirely outside the veterinary system until a case becomes severe. In effect, they are pushed underground. That is bad for welfare, bad for antimicrobial stewardship, and bad for disease surveillance.

Telehealth can also contribute meaningfully to public health where avian patients are concerned. Backyard poultry and other birds may carry infections that have relevance beyond the individual animal or flock, including organisms such as Salmonella, while avian influenza viruses remain an ongoing One Health concern internationally. Remote access to knowledgeable avian advice allows early questioning around symptoms, exposure history, household risk and creates an opportunity to give immediate guidance on isolation and interventions as well as to determine when urgent escalation is needed. In that sense, telehealth is not only a welfare tool, but also a practical way of reducing avoidable human exposure and improving biosecurity behaviour at the earliest stage.

Just as importantly, telehealth can function as an early warning layer within a broader veterinary and public health system. In New Zealand, suspected avian influenza has clear reporting implications, and internationally the risk of human infection is closely linked to contact with infected birds and contaminated environments. When owners can connect quickly with avian expertise, unusual illness is less likely to be dismissed, delayed, or handled in isolation. Instead, the case can be triaged appropriately, documented well, and moved into the right in-person, laboratory, or regulatory pathway. Used properly, telehealth helps bridge the gap between the backyard coop or aviary and the formal surveillance system, which is exactly where many public health failures begin.

If we want better welfare outcomes for birds in New Zealand, we need to define the problem correctly. It is not just access to any veterinarian. It is timely access to knowledgeable avian veterinary care, delivered in a way that respects both the biology of the patient and the realities of distance. When that does not exist animal welfare suffers, public health risks are harder to detect, and owners are more likely to disappear from the system altogether.

A modern avian care model should recognise all three realities: birds are different, expertise matters, and distance can itself become a welfare issue. In that model, telehealth is the practical bridge that brings expert avian care to the birds and owners before distance turns a manageable problem into a crisis.

*Names (of person/birds) have been changed.

Source: Avian Empire media release

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CardioNexus today announced the launch of its new Clinician App, a mobile companion to the CardioNexus remote cardiac monitoring portal, developed in partnership with New Zealand technology company Webtools.

The app is rolling out across Australia, where CardioNexus already supports cardiology services with triaged remote monitoring of implanted cardiac devices.

Designed for cardiologists on the move

Cardiologists rarely spend their day at a desk. They move between clinics, wards, cath labs and hospitals, where access to a laptop is limited but their phone is always within reach. The CardioNexus Clinician App is built for exactly those moments.

Today, monitoring patients with implanted cardiac devices typically means logging into a separate portal for every device manufacturer. Each portal has its own interface, its own login and its own alerts.

The CardioNexus Clinician App removes that burden. Every alert, from every device manufacturer, is brought into a single view on the clinician’s phone. Critically, each alert has already been triaged based on the Cardiologist’s alert preferences reviewed and summarised by a CardioNexus cardiac physiologist. That means cardiologists see only the alerts they have asked to see, presented with the clinical context that matters and with the noise already filtered out.

From the phone, clinicians can:

• Read a clear summary of the alert and why it was escalated
  
• Open the full device manufacturer report when they want the underlying detail
  
• Request adjustments to alert parameters, so monitoring is tuned to each patient
  
• Acknowledge alerts and close the loop
  
• Assign follow up tasks to their support team directly from the alert
  

The result is a digital experience that fits the way cardiologists work.

Built in partnership with Webtools

The app was developed jointly with Webtools, a New Zealand based technology company with deep
experience in clinical and enterprise software. The partnership pairs CardioNexus’ clinical and
cardiac physiology expertise with Webtools’ engineering and digital product capability.

“Cardiologists told us they were tired of logging into four or five different manufacturer portals just to stay on top of their patients. Our cardiac physiologists already do the clinical heavy lifting, reviewing and summarising every alert before it reaches the cardiologist. The app simply puts that trusted, prefiltered view in their pocket. Working with Webtools, we have built a product that respects their time, their workflow, and the clinical seriousness of every alert.” CardioNexus spokesperson

“This is a great example of trans-Tasman collaboration in health technology. We are proud to have helped bring this product to market.” Webtools spokesperson

Talking to New Zealand cardiologists

The CardioNexus service is currently delivered in Australia. With Webtools as a New Zealand partner,
CardioNexus is keen to hear from New Zealand cardiologists who would be interested in exploring
how the service could support cardiac care locally. Interested clinicians are warmly invited to get in
touch

Source: CardioNexus media release

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A few weeks ago I posted on LinkedIn that I was sick — not as a patient, but as a GP — of watching AI and digital health being used to make the old hospital model run faster. The post struck a nerve. The reaction told me what I already suspected: a lot of people in digital health quietly disagree with the direction we are heading. 

The wrong unit of care 

Every week another announcement: virtual wards, hospital in the home, remote monitoring “replacing admissions.” These are framed as transformation, but they are not. They take the most expensive, most clinician-intensive, least patient-controlled unit of care we have - the hospital - and re-export it into people’s homes via apps and sensors. 

And they will inevitably re-export the hospital’s organisational shape with it. Hospitals are organised by organ system: cardiology, renal, psychiatric, surgery. A hospital-led virtual ward will be a cardiology virtual ward or a renal virtual ward and inherit the constraints, each running its own monitoring stream into the same patient’s home, blind to the others.  

Compare that with how a blood test or an X-ray works, they are services organised around the patient’s need, not around a hospitals department’s territory. Primary care is built on the same patient-centric logic: the integrating layer that already holds the whole patient. Putting RPM only in the hospital reproduces the silo. Putting it in primary care does not. 

Hospitalisation is what happens when life has broken down enough that autonomy disappears. It is sometimes necessary, but is never the goal. We should be aspiring to a system in which it is needed less often, not delivering more of it more efficiently in more places. 

The leverage is on the other side 

Vote Health for 2024/25 is around $29.6 billion or roughly $5,500 per New Zealander per year. Of that, only $300 to $500 reaches primary care. We spend five to nine percent of the per-person health dollar on the part of the system that keeps people well, and the rest on what happens when that fails. Hospital in the home does not move that ratio, it just changes the address at which the ninety percent is delivered. 

Take blood pressure as the worked example. Around a million New Zealanders live with hypertension. Lifting national control rates from 10 percent would put 100,000 more people in target range, most concentrated where the inequity sits. Māori carry 1.5 times and Pacific peoples 2 times the stroke risk of NZ Europeans, and present at mean ages of 60 and 62 against 75. The Ettehad meta-analysis (pooling trials with mean follow-up of around 4 years) found that a sustained 10 mmHg drop in systolic BP delivers, over that period, a 27 percent reduction in stroke risk and 13 percent reduction in all-cause mortality. Applied to the 100,000 cohort over five years, that implies of the order of 1,000 to 1,500 cardiovascular hospitalisations and 200 deaths averted. 

Compare the two paths. A reactive Hospital-in-the-Home model wraps acute services around the 1,500 patients who event, at a cost of roughly $35,000 to $40,000 each, after the damage is done. A preventive primary-care model touches all 100,000 with a three-month intensive programme at around $500 to $700 per patient. The five-year programme cost is similar in both, between $50 to $70 million, but one model manages disease the system has already failed to prevent, and the other reaches the populations carrying one-and-a-half to two times the risk before the event. Beyond five years, the preventive path compounds across CVD, CKD, diabetes and dementia. The reactive path does not. 

A familiar referral, brought into the present 

What is being described here is what would be possible as “Better healthcare in the home”, brought into the present: a cuffless device worn for three months, the patient seeing their own data shift in response to sleep, salt, stress, exercise and medication. The 24-hour ABPM is a measurement. Three months of engaged monitoring is a behaviour-change programme that happens to start with BP, is proactive and evidence based. 

And it does not stop at BP. Combine continuous BP with continuous ECG, movement, sleep and weight, and the model stops being disease management. It becomes proactive risk detection across the patient as a whole - atrial fibrillation found before the stroke, deconditioning found before the fall, sleep apnoea found before the cardiac event. One platform, several pathways, and the underlying logic is anticipation rather than reaction. Not stopping an organ getting sick, but keeping the person well.  

Patients who learn to interpret their own data and adjust their habits do not unlearn those skills when the device comes off; they redeploy them, to glucose, weight, medication adherence, and the next chronic disease conversation. Heart rate variability is a good example: a single reading in clinic tells you very little, but a personal baseline trended over months, and then available the day someone presents unwell, turns the same data into a genuinely informative health measure. 

Prevention is currently a luxury good 

People with discretionary income already buy prevention: they wear the Garmin, they pay for the gym, they take half a day off for the ABPM, they have the kitchen and the time and the health literacy to act on the results. The existing paradigm quietly assumes all of these things and the people without discretionary income end up presenting at ED with the disease the discretionary-income population prevented years earlier. 

The equity case for primary-care RPM is that it turns prevention from a luxury good into a public good. There is no version of “close the equity gap” that does not run through structured, publicly funded, primary-care-delivered prevention. 

Four things have to change 

Move the unit of measurement upstream. Bed days avoided is the wrong KPI when the goal is fewer bed days needed. Population-level BP control by ethnicity, ED avoidance and continuity of care should sit alongside HitH bed-day numbers in any digital health dashboard. 

Move the money with the work. If primary care is to absorb monitoring at scale (and it should), the capitation envelope has to reflect it. RPM-enabled targeted titration of interventions and self management should be funded as a distinct activity. The 1 July 2026 capitation reweighting is the obvious moment. 

Move the data with the patient. A virtual ward without the primary care AND consumers trend of data is just an inpatient unit with a longer cable. The Shared Digital Health Record is a start; bidirectional flow is the play. 

Move the time horizon. Today’s ED presentations are not failures of last month’s primary care funding, they are failures of the prevention investment we did not make a decade ago. We have to fund both the strokes happening now and the prevention that bends the curve in 2031. Different time horizons need different funding streams. 

Where this lands 

Digital health has a once-in-a-generation chance to redesign the system. We will waste it if we use AI and remote monitoring to make a 1950s hospital model run faster. The future we should be scaling is not hospital in the home, it is life in the home - supported by primary care, enabled by good technology, with hospitalisation reserved for the moments when everything else has genuinely failed. That is the harder system change. It is also the only one that meaningfully closes the equity gap.

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Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora has saved $22 million over three years through a website consolidation programme that has merged 130 websites into a single digital platform.  

The programme began three years ago to address a fragmented digital landscape inherited from the 29 former health entities that formed Health NZ.   

Josh Mens, digital lead for national platforms at Health NZ, says that at its peak, the organisation managed 350 public-facing websites, creating confusion for users and inefficiencies for staff.  

"The web environment we inherited was very, very fragmented," he says.   

"There were multiple websites covering the same health topic, inconsistent branding, navigation, terminology, and varying degrees of publishing and content standards.  

"For the public it was just messy and confusing."  

Benefits of consolidation  

The consolidation programme initially focused on the 20 former district health board websites and shared service agencies. This has expanded to include recruitment websites, creating a single national recruitment channel, and now consolidating mental health websites.  

Mens says the programme was not originally designed as a cost-saving initiative but rather to reflect the single organisation Health NZ had become. However, the financial benefits have enabled reinvestment in higher-quality digital services.  

"We are able to spend that money more wisely so we can engage different development vendors to help us produce a higher quality result," he explains.  

The consumer experience  

For the public, the changes mean simplified access to health information through a single, authoritative source.   

The new Health NZ website won the Best Public Sector Website award at the Plain Language Awards in 2025, reflecting improved quality content in accessible language.  

"Having a single place where people know they can go and feel confident in the information they are receiving is a massive booster for trust and confidence in Health New Zealand," Mens says.  

“Many households have that single person who is responsible for the health of the household.  

"By having all of these different health topics in one place, presented with a consistent interface, it just makes it a lot less stressful."  

Enhanced accessibility compliance with New Zealand government web standards means websites work with assistive technologies like screen readers for users with disabilities or impaired vision.  

A trusted source  

The consolidation has also improved search engine performance, with Health NZ no longer competing against itself for Google rankings. It optimises content for traditional search engines and artificial intelligence-powered search tools, including ChatGPT and Microsoft's AI search functions.  

During health emergencies or outbreaks affecting multiple regions, Health NZ can publish consistent messaging once and deploy it across relevant areas of the site, ensuring all audiences receive the same information.  

Analytics data shows increased user engagement with the consolidated content, and user testing confirms improved experiences compared to the previous fragmented system.  

"People generally only engage with us when they have to," Mens says.   

“It is often a high stress time where they access our services, so presenting it all in a way that is well tested, well written and very easy to navigate just makes it easier."  

Future plans  

The next phase will address remaining website categories such as pregnancy and maternity services, smoking cessation, vaping information, and cancer services.   

Mens says future developments may also include AI-driven search capabilities and chatbots to connect users with appropriate services, as well as integration with services like My Health Record and Book My Vaccine.  

"We want to create an experience where people can come to our website, find the right information the first time, get directed to the correct service the first time, rather than trying and failing and potentially giving up," Mens says.  

The programme supports Health NZ's broader digital strategy of directing patients to appropriate care settings, including an online GP service  

With 220 websites still needing to be consolidated Mens expects the programme to continue delivering cost savings while improving user experience and organisational efficiency.  

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

Developed in partnership with Health New Zealand

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Health New Zealand's HealthX programme is rolling out 100 remote patient monitoring kits (RPM) to six hospitals across Wellington, Waikato, Tairāwhiti, and Whangārei, cutting the time needed to stabilise heart failure patients on medication from six months to six weeks.

The expansion follows a successful regional trial using Spritely in the Hawke’s Bay that showed 80 percent of heart failure patients reached recommended medication levels within six weeks using remote monitoring, compared to five to six months under traditional care models.

Health Minister Simeon Brown, writing in a column for eHealthNews, says remote monitoring devices and virtual check-ins allow clinicians to track patient conditions and respond early if something changes.

One hundred RPM kits have been approved and are now being introduced in stages across Wellington, Waikato, Tairāwhiti, and Whangārei.

“Each monitoring kit can also be reused, making it a practical way to extend specialist care and manage demand,” says Brown.

Sonny Taite, director of innovation and AI at Health NZ | Te Whatu Ora, said at the recent AI in Clinical Practice conference in Auckland that the programme enables care across rural locations, addressing one of HealthX's three core pressure areas alongside workforce challenges and clinical inefficiencies.

A recent example from Kaitaia showed the system's flexibility when a rural cardiology nurse needed to take a holiday and the team was able to redirect weekly patient consultations to Whāngerei Hospital without interruption to the patient’s care, he said.

At a recent HiNZ workshop in Auckland – From IT to Digital and AI in Health – the Health New Zealand Hawke's Bay team presented on the heart failure project and said it is saving approximately $10,000 per patient while delivering faster care to rural and underserved communities.

The virtual care programme is supported by Spritely and provides patients with blood pressure monitors, oximeters and tablets for remote monitoring. Patients receive daily questionnaires and observation monitoring, with weekly consultations conducted remotely and the programme runs for 90 days before discharge.

Nurse practitioner Daman Kaur said it achieves shorter time frames, quicker time slots, frequent appointments, no patient or clinician travel, no readmissions and no DNAs.

"This is a win win situation for patients, clinicians, the health dollar, equity, access and models of care,” she told the Auckland audience.

HealthX launched in September 2025. The RPM solution is one of five initiatives being delivered as part of its monthly rollout programme designed to rapidly deploy AI and innovative solutions across the public health system.

Image: Daman Kaur presenting on the Hawke’s Bay virtual care project at HiNZ event - From IT to Digital and AI in Health – March 2026

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As Minister of Health, I get the opportunity to regularly visit emergency departments, clinics, and community health services across New Zealand, speaking with patients and clinicians about the pressures winter brings. The message has been consistent: demand rises quickly, and the system needs to be ready to respond.

Virtual care

One of the clearest shifts I have seen in response is the growing role of virtual care. It is helping services stay connected with patients when demand is high or travel is difficult, particularly in parts of the country where distances are long or weather can disrupt access. In doing so, it supports continuity of care and reduces unnecessary pressure on emergency departments.

Hospital in the Home is a strong example of how this is working in practice. Across New Zealand, patients who would otherwise remain in hospital are receiving hospital-level care in their own homes, supported by regular clinical reviews, remote monitoring, and clear pathways back to hospital if their condition changes. For many patients, this is not just clinically appropriate, but preferable.

Patients often say they recover better at home when it is safe to do so, able to sleep in their own bed, make a cup of tea when they feel like it, and stay connected to their community. Clinicians see the benefits as well. Monitoring patients at home allows for earlier intervention and helps reduce avoidable hospital admissions, while every patient safely cared for at home frees up a hospital bed for someone else. This becomes especially important over the winter months.

Scaling up

To support this kind of care at scale, the right digital tools are essential. Remote monitoring devices and virtual check-ins allow clinicians to track a patient’s condition and respond early if something changes, supporting faster decision-making while maintaining clear clinical oversight.

This approach is already being put into practice through Health New Zealand’s HealthX programme, which is rolling out remote monitoring and virtual follow-up for people with heart conditions. Following a successful regional trial, 100 monitoring kits have been approved and are now being introduced in stages across Wellington, Waikato, Tairāwhiti, and Whangārei.

Early feedback from clinicians has been encouraging. Remote monitoring allows medications to be adjusted more quickly, reducing the time it takes to stabilise patients. What previously required multiple in-person visits over several months can now often be managed within weeks, with patients safely supported at home. Each monitoring kit can also be reused, making it a practical way to extend specialist care and manage demand.

Digital primary care

The same principles apply in primary care, where virtual services are improving access for patients who cannot see their usual GP or need care outside normal clinic hours. This is particularly important in rural and remote communities, where distance, weather, and transport can make access more difficult.

In response, a national 24/7 digital primary care service was launched last year, giving people access to virtual consultations with New Zealand-registered doctors and nurse practitioners at any time. Clinicians can assess symptoms, provide treatment, prescribe medications, and make referrals when patients cannot access their usual GP or need after-hours care. Early access to clinical advice can prevent conditions from worsening and reduce avoidable presentations to emergency departments.

A Shared Digital Health Record

Underpinning all of this is the need for better access to patient information. Health New Zealand’s Shared Digital Health Record is being developed to expand the information available to authorised healthcare providers, building on systems already in place in parts of the country. Its purpose is to ensure key patient information can be accessed wherever care is delivered.

This includes details such as allergies, medications, and existing conditions, supporting faster and safer clinical decision-making, including prescribing. It also enables information to be shared back to a patient’s regular GP, strengthening continuity of care. Strong privacy and security protections are central to this work, with access strictly controlled and monitored.

These tools are also making a difference in aged residential care, where timely access to clinical advice can prevent unnecessary hospital transfers and reduce pressure during periods of high demand. Facilities and retirement villages are using virtual nursing services, or implementing their own, to provide enhanced care.

As we head into winter, these changes show how virtual care is helping the health system prepare for winter. It is supporting more patients to receive care at home, improving access to services, and ensuring hospital capacity is focused where it is needed most. Led by frontline staff, it is an important part of how we are building the future of the healthcare system, with patients at the centre.

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Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora is offering one-off infrastructure grants of up to $10,000 to create private digital spaces for online GP consultations at urgent care services, after hours facilities, rural hospitals, and integrated health services.

The funding initiative comes as the government's 24/7 Online GP Care service falls short of expectations, delivering 60,600 consultations between May 2025 and mid-January 2026 against projected annual targets of 410,000 subsidised consultations, the General Practice Owners' Association (GenPro) says.

An ROI released by Health NZ says selected services will receive funding to create private, digitally enabled spaces onsite where patients can do online GP consultations.

"This initiative is designed to improve access to primary care by enabling people to complete an Online GP consultation at trusted points of care, particularly for individuals who face challenges accessing or enrolling with a general practice," the documentation says.

The funding covers laptops or screens, audio hardware and headphones, digital connectivity, and booths or fit-out of private consultation spaces.

Up to 20 services may also receive ongoing support for subscriptions to basic remote examination devices such as TytoCare.

The documents say funding will be prioritised for services based on access and community need, with preference given to services supporting rural or remote communities, areas of high deprivation, and locations with limited access to general practice.

Meanwhile, GenPro chair Angus Chambers says the government's broader telehealth investment is failing to meet its objectives.

The government launched a 24/7 telehealth service called Online GP Care in mid-2025, as a convenient alternative for lower-acuity care and a way to reduce demand on emergency departments.

GenPro says emergency department demand continues to rise despite the telehealth rollout. Between October and December 2025, 340,967 patients attended EDs, compared with 332,110 in the same period in 2024.

"Telehealth was meant to ease pressure on our Emergency Departments. Clearly it isn't achieving that,” Chambers says.

"The government should redirect its $165 million investment in telehealth to what patients actually want: accessible, face-to-face care in their communities.”

A GenPro survey of 1,798 patients found that 87 per cent prefer in-person consultations with their regular GP. 

"Telehealth can play a role in healthcare, but it should complement, not replace, traditional general practice,” he says.

Expressions of interest for the Health NZ funding can be submitted until 23 April 2026.

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Telehealth is falling far short of expectations, with fewer patients using the service than predicted— and it’s not easing pressure on New Zealand’s emergency departments, says Dr Angus Chambers, Chair of the General Practice Owners’ Association (GenPro).

“The government should redirect its $165 million investment in telehealth to what patients actually want: accessible, face-to-face care in their communities. Additional funding support would also help general practices keep fee increases to a minimum this year,” says Dr Chambers.

When the Government launched 24/7 telehealth services in mid-2025, it promised a convenient alternative for lower-acuity care and a way to reduce demand on emergency departments. But the latest figures reveal the initiative is struggling to deliver.

A Government business case projected 410,000 subsidised telehealth consultations annually, yet only 60,600 consultations were delivered between May 2025 and mid-January 2026.

Meanwhile, emergency department demand continues to rise. Between October and December 2025, 340,967 patients attended EDs, compared with 332,110 in the same period in 2024, despite a slight increase in throughput.

“Telehealth was meant to ease pressure on our Emergency Departments. Clearly it isn’t achieving that,” Chambers says.

“Patients are still presenting to emergency departments in large numbers. The service is nowhere near as popular as predicted, and it’s therefore not achieving its core objective.”

Chambers says the reasons are clear. “A GenPro survey of 1,798 patients found that 87 percent prefer in-person consultations with their regular GP. People want continuity, trust, and face-to-face care. Telehealth is largely a second-best option for most patients.”

Compounding the issue, telehealth is mostly being used by urban, employed, young adults – people least likely to present at emergency departments. This limit’s the service’s ability to reduce ED demand.

“These figures expose fundamental flaws in the telehealth policy,” Chambers says.

“This was a significant public investment, yet it is not delivering value where it is most needed. Uptake is low, it is not evidence-based, and it’s failing to support the health system as intended.”

Ahead of the 2026 Budget, GenPro is urging the government to redirect funding into strengthening community-based general practice.

“At a time when GPs are under enormous pressure, investing in in-person care would improve access, support continuity, and help reduce cost pressures on patients—while more directly addressing the drivers of emergency department demand,” Chambers says.

“Telehealth can play a role in healthcare, but it should complement—not replace—traditional general practice.”

Source: General Practice Owners’ Association media release

Sector updates are provided by organisations to eHealthNews.nz and have not necessarily been edited or checked for accuracy. Any queries should be directed to the organisation issuing the release.

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New Zealand’s next leap in digital health is about models of care, not technology  

For more than two decades, New Zealand has been experimenting with telehealth - Plunketline, Healthline, telepaediatrics, regional stroke services - none of this is new.

We did not begin the Covid19 pandemic as a digitally naive system, even if at times it felt that way. 

And yet, despite this long history, we are still prone to having the same conversation - does telehealth work? 

That question is now largely the wrong one. The more useful, and more uncomfortable question is this: what happens when we try to use telehealth without changing how care is organised?  

Telehealth does not clone people 

One of the most persistent myths in digital health is that technology, by itself, creates capacity. That a video consultation somehow bends the laws of workforce physics when it does not. 

Traditional hospital care is constrained by two things, clinician time and physical infrastructure. Telehealth as straight substitution - a clinician on a screen instead of in a room - changes the location of care, but not the constraint. One clinician still delivers care to one patient at a time. 

This is why many clinicians emerged from Covid feeling bruised rather than liberated. Telehealth was layered onto already stretched workflows, often without administrative support, redesigned triage, or clear escalation pathways. The benefits accrued largely to patients - less travel, less waiting - while the cognitive and operational burden landed squarely on staff. 

Technology enabled continuity, but did not transform the system. 

When capacity does appear 

Capacity gains begin to appear only when telehealth is paired with new models of care; deliberate triage, delegation and role redesign, team based escalation,  protocolised pathways and clarity about who is responsible for what, and when. 

In other words, telehealth becomes a force multiplier only when it is coupled with service redesign. 

This distinction matters, because it shifts the conversation away from platforms and towards clinical governance, workforce design, and flow. It also helps explain why some virtual services scale safely and others simply create more work. 

Enter the virtual hospital 

Internationally, there is increasing clarity about what a Virtual Hospital actually means and it is not a collection of video clinics. 

The literature describes virtual hospitals as centralised, multidisciplinary hubs delivering continuous, hospital level care remotely. They are designed for defined populations - particularly people with chronic disease, frailty, or high risk of admission - and they operate proactively, not episodically. 

Telehealth is part of the toolkit, but it is not the organising principle. This framing aligns closely with the consensus reached at New Zealand’s Virtual Hospital Symposium in early 2026, where clinicians, system leaders, and digital health experts converged on a pragmatic view: 

“A virtual hospital is not a building, not an app, and not a bolt on service, it is a hybrid model of care, intentionally integrating virtual and in person services under clear clinical governance.” 

Notably, the symposium placed equity, workforce sustainability, and interoperability at the centre of design, rather than assuming these would emerge later as ‘benefits’. 

Hospital in the Home and the discipline of definition 

Hospital in the Home (HiTH) is often cited as evidence that virtual models “work”. The evidence does support this, but only when HiTH genuinely substitutes for a hospital bed. 

When HiTH is tightly defined, clinically governed by hospital services, and resourced appropriately, outcomes are comparable or better for selected patients, with reduced bed days and pressure on acute services. 

When definitions loosen, and HiTH becomes a relabelled community service or a monitoring overlay, both evidence and credibility erode. 

This definitional discipline is not pedantry, it is what protects clinicians from being asked to deliver hospital-level responsibility without hospital-level support. 

Remote Patient Monitoring

Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) does not treat patients: it does not replace clinical judgement and on its own, it does not reliably reduce admissions or costs. 

The literature, and lived experience, suggest a blunt truth: RPM amplifies the quality of the system it sits in. In a well-designed pathway, it supports early intervention and confidence. In a fragmented one, it generates alerts, workload, and frustration. 

RPM works best when treated as infrastructure, embedded in Virtual Hospital or HiTH pathways with defined thresholds, escalation authority, and workforce capacity to respond. Otherwise, it risks becoming very expensive reassurance. 

Is virtual care the panacea? 

No, and it never was, but governed well, virtual care enables something genuinely important: care without walls. This is care that is not constrained by geography, buildings, or historical service silos. 

Achieving this is not primarily a technological challenge. It is definitional, organisational, cultural and clinical. 

Which is why this conversation belongs not just in IT forums, but in Clinical Senates, governance rooms, and workforce planning discussions. 

If telehealth were a pill, we would not prescribe it indiscriminately. We would ask about indication, dose, combination, and monitoring. Digital health deserves the same clinical discipline. 

The next leap for New Zealand will not come from better platforms alone. It will come from clarity about models of care, and the courage to redesign them.  

Author note: 
This piece draws directly on insights presented to the New Zealand Clinical Senate and discussions from the Virtual Hospital Symposium, reflecting both international evidence and New Zealand clinical consensus. 

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The Northern Region's Hospital at Home (H@H) programme is supporting around120 patients daily, with plans to expand to 200 patients by the end of the next financial year.

The service is having a significant impact on hospital capacity by effectively freeing up around 80 beds daily across the region's hospitals.

The home-based service combines continuous remote monitoring using wearable devices, intermittent monitoring devices, virtual ward rounds and in-person interventions, with 60 percent of patients on any day receiving in-person interventions and 40 percent of patients receiving virtual care as an alternative.

Erik McClain, clinical lead Northern Region H@H, says that since launching at Auckland Hospital they have seen a reduction in general medicine length of stay by one day.

With those wards seeing up to 220 patients daily, shaving a day off length of stay has a massive impact, he says.

Counties Manukau was the first to develop and implement H@H pathways supporting admission directly from the Emergency Department (ED) Medical Assessment Unit. Half of all patients admitted to H@H in Counties Manukau now come directly from the ED, avoiding a hospital admission altogether.

Other sites are planning to implement similar direct admission routes within the next few months. 

As the three Metro Auckland districts, H@H services were developed rapidly in response to the challenges created by the Covid-19 pandemic and in 2023 the Northern Regional Provider Group tasked the region as a whole with expanding H@H services.

Te Tai Tokerau went live with their first patients in March 2024, completing the regional rollout.

Penny Magud, interim regional operational lead for Northern Region H@H, says a key component of the regional service is the 24/7 virtual coordination hub staffed by virtual care nurses who monitor patients using remote wearable devices and intermittent monitoring equipment. 

The digital technology enables the service to support more patients, including those with higher acuity, through 24 hour oversight and virtual vital sign monitoring.

The wearable currently being used by H@H allows the team to monitor six different vital signs (HR, BP, RR, SPO2, Temperature and ECG), along with cardiac algorithms. A virtual care dashboard operates 24/7, prioritising patients based on early warning scores generated from their vital signs data.

"All patients receive virtual care as part of the hybrid model of care, as each patient is reviewed in a virtual ward round each afternoon, which are led by our H@H clinicians (SMO/Nurse Practitioners) ” Magud explains.

“This winter we are aiming for 150 patients at any given time to be supported in H@H across the region, with a vision that by end of the 2026-2027 financial year we will be supporting around 200 patients on any given day of the week”.

McClain says the programme has expanded beyond general medicine to include post-operative cardiothoracic surgery patients, with plans to add pre and post-operative vascular patients. New pathways from the ED for cardiology and general medicine patients admitted directly to H@H go live next month.

Future developments include bringing patients from Northland and Waitematā to Auckland for surgery, with pre and post-operative care provided through H@H. 

Caroline Ogilvie, project manager for digital delivery Northern Region Digital Services, says the team is working on sponsored data arrangements to ensure patients can access the service without the cost of data being a barrier.

"The patient can directly text or call the virtual care hub and also the virtual care hub can directly contact the patient by video call/ SMS/ in app messaging and push educational materials and patient questionnaires," she says. 

Patient satisfaction is high, with net promoter scores reaching 98-99 percent against a target of 90 percent, Ogilvie adds.

The Northern Region has had more than 7,000 admissions to Hi@H over the 12 months with nearly two thirds of patients over 70-years-old.

Magud says the programme reflects the area’s diverse patient population. Around 18 percent of H@H patients identify as Māori, 33 percent as Pacific peoples and 18 percent as Asian.

Image: Erik McClain, clinical lead Northern Region H@H

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South Taranaki Rural Health has implemented virtual consults using locum doctors to address staff shortages and maintain patient access to care.

The hybrid model, launched in December 2025, involves patients getting in-person nursing assessments before connecting with remote doctors who have full access to the practice's patient management system.

Practice manager Lisa Zame says this means the practice can continue to provide appointments for routine and acute care without having to cancel appointments or extend wait times.

The system reduces pressure on GPs as virtual locum doctors also support administrative tasks like managing patient inboxes and reviewing laboratory results.

"This means the clinicians on the ground can focus on patients that need to have physical exams or procedures done," Zame explains.

Patients generally attend the practice rather than connecting from home. They arrive 15 minutes before their scheduled appointment to see a nurse who does vital sign assessments, including blood pressure, height, and weight measurements and any other tests that are needed.

Nursing staff also photograph skin conditions or other visible symptoms to share with the remote doctor.

"That nurse is trying to be the ears and the eyes for the doctor at the other end, and trying to capture as much information as possible," she says.

Initially some patients were hesitant and nervous, particularly elderly patients who worried about managing the technology, but they have grown in confidence after becoming familiar with the system.

Zame says that without virtual consultations, the practice would face significant challenges managing patient demand and wait times would create additional pressure on staff and potentially drive patients to emergency departments.

The hybrid model also creates opportunities for preventive care screening with nurses identifying patients overdue for cervical screening and other testing during the same visit.

Both clinical and administrative staff needed time to understand which conditions could be managed virtually versus those needing in-person examination.

"We just learned as we went and we got good feedback from the locum doctor at the other end about what they could and what they could not manage virtually," Zame says.

Image: South Taranaki Rural Health Practice Manager, Lisa Zame

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Alcidion has signed a contract with Gold Coast Health to implement its Miya Precision platform to support remote patient monitoring (RPM).

The agreement will see Alcidion deliver an end-to-end remote patient monitoring solution, enabling the health service to extend virtual care into patients' homes. The initiative is designed to support patients who can be safely monitored outside the hospital, reducing unnecessary admissions and freeing up capacity for those who need it most.

Gold Coast Health operates three hospitals and a network of community health facilities, serving one of Australia’s fastest-growing regions. With demand for healthcare services continuing to rise, the health service has been at the forefront of exploring virtual care models - recognising that the future of healthcare isn’t just about building more beds, but about delivering care in smarter, more flexible ways. 

Virtual care approaches that gained traction during the pandemic are now maturing into core components of how health services operate, and Gold Coast Health is building them into its long-term care model. It’s an approach that aligns with the health service’s “Always Care” philosophy, which places person-centred care at the heart of everything it does.

The Miya Precision platform will integrate with Gold Coast Health's existing electronic medical record system to provide clinicians with real-time access to patient data captured through remote monitoring devices. Built to scale, the platform can grow alongside Gold Coast Health's needs and connect with existing and future systems as they evolve. The solution supports a range of devices, including third-party options and patients' own devices, capturing vital signs and biometric data that feed directly into clinical workflows.

Beyond data collection, the platform provides clinical decision support and configurable care pathways, enabling clinicians to spot early warning signs before they escalate to empower patients to take an active role in managing their health from the comfort of home. Initial applications are expected to focus on areas such as post-acute care and chronic condition management, where remote monitoring can have the greatest impact.

Dom Girolamo, Executive Director of Digital and Innovation at Gold Coast Health, said: “Digital‑enabled virtual care is a core enabler of the next generation of person‑centred models under development. 

“The ongoing enhancement of traditional hospital-based services into the home and community, is supporting a broader transformation of care delivery - creating a smarter, more flexible and digitally connected health service for the future.”

Alcidion CEO Kate Quirke said: “Remote patient monitoring is transforming the way health services think about capacity - it’s no longer just about hospital beds, but about meeting patients where they are. We’re proud to partner with Gold Coast Health on this initiative, which reflects a growing momentum across the sector toward virtual care models that are better for patients and more sustainable for health systems.

“With Miya Precision, we’re giving clinicians the visibility they need to intervene early and keep patients safely on track - turning data from the home into real-time, actionable insights at the point of care.”

Source: Alcidion media release

Sector updates are provided by organisations to eHealthNews.nz and have not necessarily been edited or checked for accuracy. Any queries should be directed to the organisation issuing the release.

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