Fellows 2021

 

Angela de Zwart

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.