Colin McKenzie

Sales & Marketing Director

Sysmex New Zealand

Colin is humbled to represent New Zealand’s best interest in digital health development as a founding fellow of FHiNZ.

While his career journey started in laboratory science, he naturally pursued health IT as the means to advance patient care.

Colin has over 20 years of experience in key account and sales management roles in the industry, and currently serves as the Sales & Marketing Director at Sysmex New Zealand, where he leads the company’s sales strategy for their digital health solutions.

His vision for the future of health care is one driven by digital transformation, enabled by interoperable data and shared across open, seamless information systems at the national level.

Colin hopes to leverage his fellowship position to engage healthcare professionals, healthcare students, and the general public in the area of health informatics and highlight how it underpins our nation’s ability to realise a digital vision for health.

David Hay

Enterprise Architect

healthAlliance

David is an ex-GP who has been involved with health IT for decades – he started out writing and selling a GP Practice Management in New Zealand around 30 years ago. During that time, he became interested in HL7 standards (in the context of receiving electronic lab results, which were revolutionary at the time) and subsequently joined HL7 New Zealand and participated directly in HL7. David was awarded an HL7 Fellowship in 2018 in recognition of this involvement.  During one of those meetings a proposed new standard was introduced which was quite revolutionary - FHIR. David became a co-chair of the FHIR Management Group and was invited to join the FHIR Core team.

To help the HL7 Clinical Community become involved with the development effort, David developed and still maintains a suite of tools (clinFHIR) that is widely used in the community in a number of contexts (learning FHIR, designing FHIR solutions and helping organise FHIR related events).  He also gives talks about FHIR to an international audience - often training related, or to conferences - and he commonly uses clinFHIR within them. He is also one of the trainers that HL7 uses for their web-based training.  

The fellowship is important to David as a recognition of the key part that national and international standards have to play in the exchange of healthcare information, leading to the goal of semantic interoperability.

Gabe Rijpma

CEO

Aceso Health

Gabe’s passion for over 17 years has been focused on digital health and the application of technology innovation to make health better throughout the Asia Pacific region. 

Gabe is currently the CEO of Aceso Health – a company focused on delivering answers for health customers looking to improve the experience of care for both patients and providers.

Prior to Aceso, Gabe worked for Microsoft where he led Microsoft’s healthcare business for 15 years across 22 different markets throughout Asia, with additional technical and sales leadership roles across Asia, Australia and around the world when based in Seattle.

The Founding Fellowship for HINZ in New Zealand is a great honour for Gabe.  He is humbled to be amongst other members who have all made an incredible impact on New Zealand’s ambitions and progress in digital health. Gabe believes the group has a role to play to inspire the next generation of health innovators but also much work to do as a collective of people to continue to strengthen our health systems which are under a great deal of stress.

What makes me get out of bed each day is to make our health systems better. I am personally driven to connect the silos of care and I see this as digital’s biggest opportunity in health.

Ian McCrae

Chief Executive Officer and

Founder

Orion Health

CEO and founder of Orion Health, Ian McCrae, started the award-winning health IT company in 1993 with a four-person staff.

Before founding Orion Health, Ian was a senior telecommunications consultant for Clearfield Consulting Ltd., specialising in message standards and infrastructures. He also worked for Ernst & Young as a telecommunications consultant, managed 3Com New Zealand (while at Imagineering) and as a senior business analyst for the London Stock Exchange. 

Ian has a Master of Engineering Sciences and a Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) from the University of Auckland.

In Ian’s own words: “I’m passionate about the possibility that health IT can finally, after many years, make a difference to those in New Zealand society who are less well off, and who have consistently missed out on good healthcare. Often these people are elderly, have multiple chronic conditions, and perhaps live alone. This is where our sector could - and should - be targeting to make the biggest difference to people’s lives. The FHiNZ Founding Fellows are some of the most experienced people in New Zealand health IT. Their collective experience and insights have the potential to make a major difference to our industry and the health of New Zealanders. I’m excited to be part of this group and to help enact the transformation of New Zealand healthcare.”

Inga Hunter

Associate Professor

Massey University

Dr Karl Cole MBChB FRNZCGP FHiNZ PGDip HEALINFO

Chief Clinical Information Officer

healthAlliance

Karl currently works as the Chief Clinical Information Officer at healthAlliance, as well as being a GP. He has worked in various clinical, informatics, strategic and operational roles, over the last 10 years. Karl serves as a board member on several regional and commercial clinical advisory boards. Karl served in the NZ Defence Force as a Medical Officer for 15 years, involving deployments to UN missions, and was clinical director for the NZDF fully integrated EHR. He gained fellowship with the Royal NZ College GPs in 2004.

Karl believes gaining HINZ fellowship helps validate Health Informatics as a discrete profession within the health ecosystem. Workforce development of these essential skills and competencies is vital for the future of healthcare. A transformed and patient centred healthcare system will not be possible without a strong and fit for purpose Health Informatician workforce.

Kate Rhind

CEO

Healthpoint

Kate is the CEO of Healthpoint, an Auckland and Melbourne based health tech company she founded in 2004. Healthpoint connects more people to better healthcare through simple, excellent digital solutions, providing health information everyone can trust. Their platforms share relevant, accurate messages and data that is easily available, wherever and whenever you need it.

Kate is passionate about cloud technology, enabling patient engagement and optimising interactions. She enjoys co-creating ethical digital health solutions together with thought leaders, funders, providers and patients.

Kate has served as an elected executive board member for NZHIT (NZ Health Information and Technology) from 2010–2020 and inaugural member and chair of Women in Healthtech (WiHT) steering group 2019-2021.

We face significant challenges in health and Kate is thrilled  to be a Founding Fellow. She believes the FHiNZ programme has an important role in providing thought leadership and pathways for a truly digitally enabled future.

Liz Schoff CIPT, CISSP

Information Security Privacy Specialist

Pleione Consulting

Liz is a practicing digital health professional, specialising in cyber security and privacy. She is currently working in Southern California, advising US-based health sector organisations how to hold digital information securely and maintain compliance with global privacy and security regulations. 

Liz worked in the New Zealand health sector for more than a decade, holding various roles in well-known New Zealand organisations such as Orion Health, Health Alliance and the Northern Region DHBs. She was active in the New Zealand professional community, chairing HINZ for a number of years and leading the organisation’s restructuring in 2014.

Liz holds a Master of Information Science from San Francisco State University and a Master of Public Health from the University of Auckland.

Lucy Westbrooke

Clinical Informatics Specialist

Auckland District Health Board

Lucy Westbrooke is a Clinical Informatics Specialist at the Auckland District Health Board.  Lucy previously held senior nursing clinical and management roles before moving into informatics roles, as she believed that it was important that clinical people have input into systems and processes if they were to be fit for purpose.

Lucy was one of the inaugural members of Nursing Informatics NZ (NINZ). As chair of NINZ she played a key role working with the chair of NZ Health Informatics Foundation (NZHIF) in establishing Health Informatics New Zealand (HINZ). Lucy has served on the Executive of HINZ and is an Honorary member of HINZ.

Lucy was the NZ representative to IMIA-NI for 13 years and chaired the IMIA-NI Board. She is an Honorary member of IMIA-NI.

Lucy has been involved in many changes in technology and informatics over the years and is proud to provide a clinical and nursing lens to many aspects of informatics, both nationally and internationally. Lucy feels honoured to have been recognised as an inaugural Fellow of HINZ.

Malcolm Pollock

CEO

Second Opinion Limited

Malcolm has worked in the digital health sector for more than 30 years. He was one of the four founders of Health Informatics New Zealand (HINZ) and served on their Board for a number of years. He was a co-founder of the industry body, NZHIT, and served as Board member and subsequently Chair. He was, for seven years, Director of the National Institute for Health Innovation at the University of Auckland. He also established and Chaired the National Telehealth Foundation (now the Telehealth Leadership Group). He researched and published new approaches to procurement and consulted on this subject to both the New Zealand and Queensland governments. He authored the recently launched NZHIT report ‘Enabling a Healthier Aotearoa New Zealand’.

The HINZ Fellowship will provide him a stronger platform to promote the need for a step change in the level and effectiveness of New Zealand’s investment in digital health.

Dr Martin Wilson

Clinical Leader Information Technology

Pegasus Health (Charitable) Ltd

Dr Wilson entered General Practice in 1982. He has almost 40 years’ experience in primary care and almost 40 years’ experience as a hospital medical officer.

Dr Wilson has been active in working to achieve a single NZ National health record which enables the HealthOne vision that “Patients and health care professionals will have access to, and contribute to, patient health information in one patient centric view, available at the point of patient care”. HealthOne has now been implemented across the South Island and Martin continues to work with this, along with other clinical informatics projects and committees.

Long-term informatics roles (Clinical Leader IT Pegasus Health for more than 20 years Clinical Director Medical Informatics Canterbury District Health Board Clinical 2012 – 2019) give Martin the mandate and the resource to work across the South Island Health System to improve Information technology across the sector.

Michelle Honey

Masters of Nursing Science (MNSc) Programme Director

University of Auckland

Tena Koutou Katoa. As a nurse, Michelle has over 30 years’ experience, over half in nursing education. She works at the School of Nursing, The University of Auckland, has been involved with nursing informatics since the early 1990s and has held leadership roles supporting nursing informatics. This interest in nursing informatics has led to research in exploring how information technology can impact nursing and health care – from technology to support consumers, provision of health services utilising technology and the use of technology for education.

As well as being involved with HiNZ, Michelle is, from 2021 to 2024, Vice Chair of the International Medical Informatics Association Nursing Informatics Group (IMIA NI).

Michelle is honoured to be awarded a Founding Fellowship with HiNZ.  She thinks that the development of nurses’ roles in informatics is encouraging but a strong nursing voice in all health informatics endeavours remains essential.

Nigel Millar

Chief Medical Officer

Southern District Health Board

Nigel has been CMO for Southern DHB for five years, after 13 years in the same role in Canterbury.

He grew up and trained in the Northeast of England, coming to New Zealand as a Geriatrician and Acute Medicine Physician in 1992. In the 90s, as CD of Older Persons Health, he led the Elder Care Canterbury programme and initiated the NZ single assessment programme for older people (InterRAI). 

Nigel was part of the leadership team that transformed the Canterbury Health System and led it through the earthquakes. He initiated the HealthONE programme for the South Island and the development of a single clinical portal available right across the system. He was a member of the National Health IT Board for five years and is a Fellow of InterRAI International. 

Nigel is a lifelong cyclist and advocate for active transport.

Dr Richard Medlicott

General Practitioner

Island Bay Medical Centre

Richard is a GP in Wellington, with a long interest and involvement in Health IT. Starting out on the IT committee of an IPA over two decades ago, subsequent roles have included chairing HISO, a member of Medtech Advisory Group, member of the International GP Snomed Refset development and the Snomed International Quality Committee. He was instrumental in the development of the GP2GP note notes transfer system. He continues to be active in the health IT area with representation on a number of PHO and DHB committees.

Richard is proud to be a fellow of Health Informatics New Zealand. While he is not trained as a health informatician, he believes the honour reflects the desire to have strong clinical input into health IT. He recognises the importance of the cooperation between clinicians, policy and technology to get the best outcomes for patients and the system.

The future is bright with the movement into cloud based, standards driven updates to existing systems, which will also let in new competition to enhance patient care and clinician effectiveness.

Robyn Carr

After a sound background in cardio-thoracic procedures, the quantum leap from Theatre Manager of the Green Lane seven-theatre suite to ADHB’s fledgling IT department resulted in Robyn being a foundation member of Nursing Informatics NZ. Which then, by reason of being the New Zealand representative on the international group, saw her graduating to World President.

Robyn had a strong belief in the use of informatics – even at the bedside – and her continued presence at the annual international meetings reinforced that view.

Now professionally retired, she remains adamant that the nursing aspect of medical informatics should not get lost in the wider international scene. Use of her fellowship will enable her, from time to time, to inject both reason and enthusiasm into the requisite thinking.

Her grasp of the wider links internationally will enable the conversation to be elevated as high and wide as possible. This is the key avenue for achieving her professional beliefs.

Dr Robyn Whittaker

Associate Professor at the National Institute for Health Innovation

University of Auckland

and

Clinical Director of Innovation

Waitematā DHB

Robyn is a public health physician who has been working in digital health development since 2004 – particularly designing, developing and trialling health services delivered directly to people using their mobile phones, including smoking cessation, diabetes self-management support and cardiac/pulmonary rehabilitation programmes.

Robyn is Associate Professor at the National Institute for Health Innovation (University of Auckland) and Clinical Director of Innovation at Waitematā DHB where she has been leading the Leapfrog Programme of strategic projects with a focus on digitising the hospital. She is Chair of the Northern Region Health Systems Design Council, a member of the National Telehealth Forum Leadership Group, the MoH Digital Investment Board and the WHO Digital Health Technical Advisory Group.

Robyn is passionate about training the next generation of clinical IT leaders in the health sector, leading a Clinical Digital Academy at Waitematā DHB.

Simon Hayden

Managing Director

Health New Zealand - Te Whatu Ora

Simon started working in health in 2002 with the NZ TelePaediatric Service, with the Starship Foundation based at Starship Children’s hospital. He created a successful video conferencing service for all Paediatric departments across New Zealand that grew from an initial eight units to over 320, managing VC units across NZ carrying over 1.5 million hours of video calls per year.

Simon is currently Managing Director of Vivid Solutions that still delivers many video and audio-visual services and solutions across the NZ DHBs. He was on the HiNZ Board in 2010 and served as treasurer for two terms.

Simon’s current focus is on the development of Telehealth deployments with VisionFlex Australia and working on a large project with the Corrections department to better connect Prison clinics to hospitals via video to support patient welfare and clinical support. VSL has just completed a successful pilot with Wellington Free Ambulance for Telestroke direct from Ambulance to the National Stroke Centre with secure, live video connectivity.

Being a Fellow of Health Informatics NZ is a much-appreciated honour for Simon and he looks forward to using his experience and networks across the New Zealand health sector to assist and enable new graduates and those starting out working in our health technology sector.

Stella Ward

Executive Director – Government Cloud Programme

Department of Internal Affairs

Stella Ward is the Executive Director – Government Cloud Programme; a key leadership role for a major All-of-Government programme of work. She is also a member of the Senior Leadership Team of the Digital Public Service Branch in the Department of Internal affairs, has trained as a speech language therapist and has worked across public and private sector.

Stella is an experienced digital leader with strong functional leadership expertise. As a respected senior executive, Stella’s career has been centred on the health sector – 14 years in executive roles across three District Health Boards, initially with Allied Health and more recently as Chief Digital Officer with the Canterbury and West Coast District Health Board. In that capacity, she has been instrumental in the design and execution of digital and ICT strategy and oversight of large-scale digital modernisation programme for all elements of the business, including the cloud business transformation, the future of work and development of ICT staff for modern digital service delivery.

Stella has also served in a governance capacity on boards including the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Global Advisory Board and as a Director of the New Zealand Health Innovation Hub. Her leadership capabilities also resulted in being a finalist for CIO of the Year in 2020.

Stuart Bloomfield

CIO

Waitematā DHB & Counties Manukau Health

Stuart’s career as a health IT leader started with programming, then a range of management roles including Mental Health IT, through to CIO of both Waitematā and Counties Manukau DHBs. He finds working in health challenging and invigorating, where we have the imperative to improve the lives of patients and clinicians through better systems. Stuart has a track record of building high functioning teams with a focus on tangible outcomes.

Becoming a founding member of the Fellowship Programme is an honour to Stuart, which he feels recognises the outstanding work of those teams, more than him personally. As a member, Stuart will use this opportunity to empower others, break through barriers, progress innovations and challenge the status quo. The health service reforms are a golden opportunity to provide a more connected health system with a focus on clinician leadership, equity of care and value for money.

Dr Will Reedy

Managing Director Hauora

Accenture Aotearoa

Will is passionate about improving health outcomes with digital health. After specialising in health Informatics in the early 2000s, Will has worked around the world in digital transformation roles across the UK, Europe, North America, Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

These roles have included:  

• CEO, Spark Health
• Global Clinical Director for Orion Health
• Clinical Business Architect/Associate Clinical Director for Accenture Health and Life Sciences – UK/Europe
• Consulting Principal Health and Life Sciences for HP Australasia
• Digital Health Consultant for the World Bank
• Director of Strategy and Architecture for eHealthNSW
• Inaugural Chair of the MoH NHIP Advisory Committee

Will also held a number of roles while CEO at Spark Health including:

• Reselling and implementing the world's leading cloud-based Ambulance Electronic Health Record Solution (Siren ePCR) and OnBoard Mobile Gateways to Ambulance Services across the Asia-Pacific Region
• Strategic advice to boards and executive teams
• Board member for digital start ups
• Digital health lecturer at the University of Otago