Michael Dreyer
Group Manager of National Digital Services
Ministry of Health

Michael Dreyer is the GM of National Digital Services in the Ministry of Health. The team provide shared national health IT Services such as the National Health Index, Payments, Screening and Registers (Cancer, Immunisation etc). During the Covid response Michael established and ran the Contact Tracing Service and has lead the delivery of technology for the response. This includes the new National Contact Tracing Solution, the Border Management systems and the COVID-19 Vaccine and Immunisation Programme. 

Prior to his current role he worked for ten years at Contact Energy, finishing as Acting General Manager ICT where he lead a migration to cloud services. He has a Master’s Degree in Forestry Science (Cant.). He spent his early career running digital transformations in London and also driving superyachts in the Mediterranean.

Saxon Connor
HBP Surgeon and e-clinical health lead
Canterbury DHB

Saxon has been an HPB Surgeon at Christchurch hospital since 2005. He is the e-clinical health lead for the Canterbury district health board. He has been involved with tech companies bringing electronic workflow solutions for clinicians from concept to production. He has a strong academic interest having published over 125 articles. He is an e-tutor for HPB module of the University of Edinburgh online ChM programme. He has served as an Editor of HPB (2008-2021) and a member of the editorial boards of the World Journal of Surgery (2006-2019) and British Journal of Surgery (2005-). He is developing an interest in governance  having served on APHPBA council (2012-2019), the research committee of the IHPBA (2012-2020) and currently serves on board of ANZHPBA (2019-) and has recently been appointed as independent director of Forte Health.

Stuart Bloomfield
CIO
Waitematā DHB & Counties Manukau Health

My 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. 

I find working in health challenging and invigorating, where we have the imperative to improve the lives of patients and clinicians through better systems. I have a track record of building high functioning teams with a focus on tangible outcomes. I believe partnering with clinical leaders and growing clinician/informatician hybrids is key to data and digital advancement in healthcare. 

Kate Quirke
Group Managing Director
Alcidion

Kate has more than 25 years of experience in the healthcare information technology sector. 
She has been involved in large systems procurements and implementations of healthcare information technology across Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia.

Kate’s background involves holding leading management roles at some of the largest healthcare software firms where she has had an impact on strategic product direction across the health sector and believes astute application of information technology will support the transformation of healthcare delivery worldwide.

In 2020, Kate won the Executive Leader award in the inaugural B&T Women Leading Tech Awards.  
As Alcidion Managing Director, Kate leads the various elements of the business across Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom with a focus on sales and marketing and developing business relationships with customers, partners and investors across the world.

Kate Reid
Director of Digital Health, Consulting
Deloitte
Current NZHIT Chair and Board Director

Kate has dedicated the past twenty years to innovation in healthcare. She currently leads Deloitte’s Digital Health practice. Kate began her career as a Dietitian, and is passionate about driving digital adoption and more integrated, collaborative ways of working to improve the health of all New Zealanders. Kate currently holds the Chair of NZHIT, New Zealand’s vibrant digital health industry sector peak body representing a diverse membership of over 170 health IT companies. She has the privilege of working alongside these organisations to position digital health technologies as a key enabler of quality health, social care and wellbeing services. Kate is also one of the Founders of Women in Health Tech, established to support diversity across the Health IT sector working collaboratively with NZHIT, MTANZ and MedTechCore.

Kathryn Cook
Te Tumu Whakarae (Chief Executive)
Midcentral DHB

Kathryn is the Chief Executive of MidCentral District Health Board. The DHB commissions and delivers health and disability services for its diverse population, located across 9000 km2 of New Zealand’s lower North Island stretching from the West to the East coasts.

As a member of the national DHB chief executive’s forum, Kathryn is the lead Chief Executive for data and digital. In this role Kathryn is working alongside the Transitional Unit, Ministry of health and DHB colleagues to support key data and digital workstreams in the transition to the Health NZ and the Maori Health Authority.

Previously Kathryn was a Partner in KPMG Australia’s Health, Ageing and Human Services practice and the Chief Executive of Western Health, located in Melbourne, Australia. During her career, Kathryn has also held a range of policy and leadership positions in the New Zealand Ministry of Health and Western Australian and Victorian Departments of Health.

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 he worked for Microsoft for 20 years where he led Microsoft’s healthcare business across 22 different markets throughout Asia, with additional technical and sales leadership roles across Asia, Australia and the USA prior.

Gabe is globally recognized for his work in healthcare and for the work with health technology innovators. He is an avid believer and prolific public speaker on the impact of applying technology to enhance and strengthen health systems.

Gabe based in Christchurch, New Zealand is currently the Chair of the South Island Alliance digital health strategy for the 5 District Health Boards and an active advisor for NZTE to help grow New Zealand companies offshore.

He is a fellow of the Australasian Institute of Digital Health and a Founding fellow of Health Informatics New Zealand. Gabe is an active investor, board member and advisor to tech companies throughout New Zealand and the broader Asia Pacific region with a deep focus on making health better for all of us.

Webinar facilitator:

Rebecca McBeth
HiNZ News Editor

Rebecca McBeth joined the HiNZ team as editor of eHealthNews.nz in January 2018. Rebecca was previously news editor at Digital Health Intelligence in London and prior to that, was the senior health reporter at The Christchurch Press, where she won a NZ Canon Media Award and a NZ Reporting Diversity award. Based in Auckland, she is committed to communicating news, experience and knowledge throughout New Zealand’s data and digital health sector.