Meet our Fellows

Angela de Zwart

Clinical Solutions Specialist
Orion Health

Angela has over 25 years’ clinical experience as a registered nurse, predominantly in ED but also working in coronary care, adult rehabilitation and as a staff and patient educator in spinal injuries. From ED, I transitioned into research in emergency medicine and injury prevention and then on to a project team, implementing a PAS and clinical information system at Waitematā DHB. For the past 17 years I have worked in health IT locally and overseas consulting on the design, configuration, implementation and adoption of clinical solutions.

Angela is a member of the NZ Nursing and Midwifery Informatics special interest group and strives to advocate for nurses, both as users of clinical solutions but also as an untapped resource for driving innovation in digital technologies.

Angela is passionate about data being captured in a way that can provide meaningful insights, to improve health services and outcomes, and support the creation of an equitable health system that enables people and their whānau to live their best lives.

Darren Douglass

GM Digital Strategy and Investment, Data and Digital Directorate
Ministry of Health

I have been a leader in strategic planning and IT implementation in health for 25 years. I graduated from Waikato University in 1989 with a management degree and my first job was with a small software company developing and implementing clinical applications in the UK.  I was hooked and developed a passion for enabling health outcomes through the use of technology and a strategic approach to implementing digital services.

Following a number of industry project and general IT management roles delivering primary, community and hospital solutions across the UK I moved back to New Zealand and have worked in a variety of DHB and health shared service agency roles. I established the Health Sector Architects Group in 2010 and have been a past member of the Health Information Standards Organisation Committee and Chair of the DHB CIO Forum. I joined the Ministry of Health in 2016 and I’m currently Group Manager Digital Strategy and Investment. While at the Ministry I have developed the Digital Health Strategic Framework for New Zealand and lead the key functions of digital strategy, architecture, standards, cyber security and investment portfolio management.

The evolution of data and digital services means that we are at an exciting time when the promise of technology is now real, available and affordable; and system reform provides the opportunity to enable a “digital by design” health system that delivers better health outcomes for all.

Delwyn Armstrong

Head of Analytics
Waitematā DHB

Delwyn Armstrong is the Head of Analytics at the Institute for Innovation and Improvement at Waitemata DHB and holds a Master’s in Public Health. She has a passion for improving access to patient information for clinicians; fostering data-driven, clinician-led healthcare improvement. She has led the DHB-wide implementation of Qlik Sense at Waitemata, and the development of a northern regional real-time data store and integrated dashboard to support the regional COVID-19 response. Through her previous experience managing Waitemata’s Health Intelligence Team and various analyst and project management roles across all three Auckland DHBs, she has developed an end-to-end understanding of information systems.

Emma Collins

Registered Nurse and Educator
University of Otago

Emma Collins is a registered nurse and educator. Her clinical background includes a position in paediatrics both inpatient services as well as in the community. She remains practicing clinically in an urban paediatric setting. 

Emma has been an educator in higher education for over 10 years, mainly in nursing education, and now in medical education. In the education setting, Emma has proactively led the considered use of technology in healthcare education since 2014, being instrumental in leading a number of organisational wide initiatives that have led to better learning outcomes. This includes helping to design and then implementing the first level 4 Certificate in Digital Health. 

Her research interests include healthcare education and interprofessional learning as well as using mixed reality to create authentic learning experiences that develop skills for practice. 

The Fellowship means a great deal to Emma as it is recognition of her work and passion for digital healthcare. 

Greig Russell

Principal Medical Information Officer
MidCentral District Health Board

Greig’s career has always been about health informatics. His journey started in the Government Actuaries before studying Biophysics and Medicine. His clinical focus was on Community Emergency Medicine and Forensic Medicine before moving into Health Service Management and Health Informatics full time. 

Greig worked largely in rural settings with high levels of social deprivation and unmet need.  There, he quickly discovered population health care delivery was about partnerships, particularly with the local Iwi as there is more to health than medicine.

Greig’s lifelong passions include leveraging clinical platforms, like the modern EMR, to allow sustainable and scalable clinical innovation by individuals while supporting improving measurable health outcomes.  This leverages another passion of Greig’s about embracing NZ’s role as a world leader in analytics and informatics to underpin delivering on the quadruple aim. 

The Fellowship is a great honour to Greig and offers the chance to join conversations about improving population outcomes through Digital Health.

Jayden MacRae

Managing Director
DataCraft Analytics

Jayden is the Managing Director of DataCraft Analytics and has worked in the health information field since 1998. Originally trained as a physiotherapist, he started his informatics journey as an Information Officer for MidCentral Health before moving into the primary care arena with the Wellington IPA in 2000. He has held both technical and management roles throughout his career, working as an information analyst, software developer, educator, general manager and chief executive. 

Highlights of Jayden’s work to date include designing and leading the rollout of the shared care emergency record in the Wairarapa, working with the Ministry of Health on the development and rollout of the National Enrolment Service and his ongoing work in academic research related to general practice. 

Jayden holds a Bachelor of Physiotherapy, a Postgraduate Diploma in Health Informatics with Distinction and a Master of Science with Distinction and he has been a member of the NZ Institute of IT Professionals for the past two decades. 

Jayden sees the HINZ Fellowship Programme as being an important part of further developing the health informatics discipline in Aotearoa by both recognising individuals’ contributions and providing a path for those working in the field to aspire to.

Karen Day

Head of Health Systems Group, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences
The University of Auckland

Karen Day is a health informatician. She is a registered nurse and midwife, and has a BA in public health and health services management. Her Masters was in managed care for people with long term health issues, and her PhD in Information Systems was about change management linked to health IT project. She is a researcher and teacher of digital health, focusing on the digital health workforce. She has been working in digital health roles since the 90s, before she became an academic. This work involved design and implementation of information systems in health organisations. It led up to her PhD work in change management.

Anything digital fascinates her, but matching the right tool to a problem is more interesting. She is passionate about developing the digital health workforce, making their work visible and valued. This includes the designers, implementers and evaluators of digital initiatives.

Karen is honoured to be a Fellow of HiNZ, and to be part of this esteemed group of digital health leaders.

Kevin Ross

CEO
Precision Driven Health

Kevin is CEO of Precision Driven Health (PDH), a research partnership applying data science to enable precision health. PDH establishes collaborations between clinicians, data scientists and technology companies, applying the latest advances in data analytics to generate health benefits through better software tools. Their work includes the development of New Zealand-specific risk models, natural language understanding, data protection and algorithm governance. He is also Director of Research for Orion Health, founder and chair of the New Zealand Data Science & Analytics Forum, and a board member for HiNZ. Kevin received the 2020 Prime Minister’s Science Prize as part of New Zealand’s COVID-19 modelling team Te Pūnaha Matatini, and was a finalist for 2021 New Zealand IT Professional of the Year.
 
Kevin is passionate about data science and analytics, especially the safe use of data and machine learning technology for good. He trained outside of health, holding prior roles at Fonterra, PA Consulting, UC Santa Cruz, Bell Labs and NASA. He holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University, and a BSc(Hons) from the University of Canterbury. 

Being a HiNZ fellow is a great honour, and Kevin hopes our fellows can help New Zealand to navigate more widespread use of data and data science in healthcare advice and decision making. Key to this will be genuine partnership and collaboration amongst government, Māori, consumers, healthcare providers, and industry partners.

Lloyd McCann

CEO
Mercy Radiology and Clinics
Head of Digital Health
Healthcare Holdings Limited

Dr Lloyd McCann is the Chief Executive Officer for Mercy Radiology and Clinics, and is the Head of Digital Health for Healthcare Holdings Limited. He is a RACMA fellow. 

Lloyd has held clinical, commercial and leadership roles across a range of public and private provider and supplier organisations in New Zealand and internationally. He has also held elected and appointed roles on a range of digital and digital health committees and organisations including as chair of HINZ. He was a member of the NZ Health and Disability System Expert  Review Panel over 2018 – 2020.

FHiNZ is an important development for digital health in NZ. It is a privilege to be awarded the fellowship amongst many other leaders in digital health in NZ. This will help to further raise the profile and importance of digital health for health systems.

The transformative power of digital and digital health is phenomenal. We’ll know our work is completed when the term digital health disappears and we just talk about ‘health’ – because that’s when digital will be fully embedded as an indispensable enabler and service delivery channel.

Matthew Valentine

Clinical Director for Informatics
Bay of Plenty District Health Board

Matthew is a US-trained ED specialist who moved to New Zealand in 2008. While in NZ he has worked mostly at Whakatane Hospital but now splits his clinical time between Tauranga and Whakatane. 

Matthew became the first Clinical Director for Informatics at Bay of Plenty DHB and has been in that role for several years. Also, since being in NZ he has completed a post-grad diploma in health informatics from the University of Auckland, and has co-founded the health IT start-up, Cure8Health. 
 
Being a Fellow of HINZ is a huge honour for Matthew. Although it ostensibly recognises the work done in the past, he feels he has even more of a responsibility to be an advocate and ambassador for health informatics in the future. 

Matthew is particularly passionate about ensuring that people everywhere have access to needed care, and how having ownership of their health data is a key enabler for this.

Peter Jordan

Chair, HL7 New Zealand
Solution Architect, Patients First
Affiliate Director, HL7 International

Peter is the Chair of HL7 New Zealand and an experienced digital health application architect with a particular interest in information modelling and exchange. He is contracted as a Solutions Architect to Patients First, providing national interoperability solutions such as HL7® FHIR® Terminology Services, and the NZ CDA Toolkit used in GP2GP patient record transfers and the NZ e-Prescription Service.

Peter’s involvement with health information standards dates began with New Zealand’s earliest HL7 Version 2 messaging solutions in the 1990s and his three decades in the NZ sector have included spells with vendors of both primary and secondary care applications and various public sector organisations.

Internationally, he is an Affiliate Director on the HL7 International Board; Co-Chair of the HL7 International Council, and a Co-Chair of the SNOMED on FHIR Terminology Services Group.

Peter is honoured to be awarded a fellowship and believes the programme is as an important step in improving professional standards in our sector and furthering the overarching goal of creating better health care outcomes via interoperability.

Rebecca Grainger

Associate Professor
University of Otago

Rebecca is a rheumatologist working at Hutt Hospital and she does teaching and research based at the University of Otago Wellington, where she is an associate professor.  Her research focuses on rheumatology, technology and education, and particularly wherever these intersect.  

Rebecca is particularly interested in how people use, or don’t use, technology and thinking about how technology can be applied to solve problems and avoid creating more.   She hopes to see more practical skills and knowledge in digital health for all health professionals.  

Rebecca is delighted to be recognised by her peers with this Fellowship, which also creates a cohort of visible and connected digital health leaders for Aotearoa New Zealand.

Ruth Large

Chief Clinical Officer
Whakarongorau Aotearoa

Ruth is an Emergency Physician and Rural Hospitalist with an interest in Health Technology, she is the Chief Clinical Officer of Whakarongorau Aotearoa which supplies National Telehealth Services, she works clinically at Middlemore Hospital. Ruth attended Auckland School of Medicine after completing her master’s in science during which she designed a biosensor to detect alcohol. After graduating she worked in the Outback of Australia before returning to New Zealand to spend a short time in General Practice. Ruth completed her Emergency training in the Auckland area receiving Fellowship in 2007 and was grandparented into Fellowship of the Division of Rural Hospital Medicine in 2013. Ruth holds postgraduate qualifications in musculoskeletal medicine, digital technology and ultrasound and has worked as an Emergency Physician and Rural Hospitalist for the Waikato District Hospital from 2007-2021.

Whilst at Waikato DHB Ruth held successive leadership roles as Clinical Director of Thames Emergency Department, Clinical Director of Thames Hospital and Community and as Clinical Director of Information Services and Virtual Healthcare. Ruth has a keen interest in breaking down barriers to access to healthcare and sees Digital Technology as playing a pivotal role in healthcare transformation. She was a founding member of the NZ Telehealth Forum and the Clinical Informatics Lead Network. Probably the greatest pleasure she has from work is Chairing the New Zealand Telehealth Leadership Group which she has done since 2017. This group is a fantastic resource of diverse, enthusiastic hardworking individuals with a drive for equity and a passion for improving access to healthcare and is a constant source of soul nourishment.

Steve Earnshaw

Chief Clinical Innovation Officer, 3DHB ICT 
Wairarapa, Hutt Valley and Capital & Coast District Health Boards

Digital transformation is critical to improving and changing the health sector. It is this that has motivated my transition over many years from a full-time clinical role to a full time clinical informatics leadership role. I believe that clinical leadership is essential if we are to effectively and rapidly change the health system.

My background is in orthopaedic surgery. I completed my medical training in Sheffield, UK, studied for a doctorate in Nottingham and went on to complete my surgical training there also. I moved to Timaru, NZ in 2004 as an orthopaedic surgeon, but gradually moved into more leadership and management roles. I became Clinical Director for IT, and subsequently Chief Medical Officer. As CMO I led the formation of a South Island Clinical Informatics Leadership Team, and sponsored the Health Connect South Programme that rolled out a single clinical portal system for the 5 South Island DHBs, in addition to a number of other clinical ICT projects.

I moved to my current role working across the three Wellington Region DHBs in 2019. As Chief Clinical Innovation Officer I have worked alongside the CDO to establish a 3DHB governance structure, create a digital strategy, and to strengthen clinical engagement. Over the past two years I have worked to establish and gradually expand a multi-disciplinary clinical informatics team which now has 6 members from a cross section of clinical backgrounds.

I have been an active member of the CiLN Advisory Panel for the past two years, and am also part of the NZ Telehealth Leadership Group.

Outside of health I have  a range of general governance and leadership experience. I am a member of the Institute of Directors, and have served on several boards in the commercial, public and charitable sectors.

Tamzin Brott

Chief Allied Health, Scientific and Technical (AHST) Professions Officer & COVID-19 Executive Lead 
Waitematā DHB

Tamzin Brott is the Chief Allied Health, Scientific and Technical (AHST) Professions Officer and COVID-19 Executive Lead at Waitematā DHB, providing strategic, professional, clinical and quality leadership for AHST Professions across the organisation. An Occupational Therapist by profession, Tamzin also holds an MHSc (Hons) and MBA (Hons).  Tamzin is passionate about the development of data and digital systems and tools to support, and raise the visibility of, the AHST workforce and to more fully demonstrate the value they bring to better outcomes and enhanced patient experiences for the communities we serve across Aotearoa New Zealand. Tamzin would like to see a culture of innovation and transformation, across all fields of healthcare, underpinned by data with a focus on improving patient experience and outcomes. The Fellowship is important to Tamzin as it raises the profile of clinical informatics and demonstrates opportunities available for AHST professions in the digital and data space.

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