Alastair Kenworthy
Chief Standards Advisor, Data and Digital
Te Whatu Ora - Health New Zealand

Alastair Kenworthy is Chief Standards Advisor for data and digital at the Ministry of Health. He chairs the HISO standards committee and is convenor of the national mirror committee for ISO/TC 215 Health informatics. He works with health providers and their industry partners to ensure standards contribute to an equitable, data-driven and digitally-enabled health and disability system that delivers pae ora, or healthy futures, for New Zealanders.

Alastair represents New Zealand on the SNOMED International General Assembly and chaired the SNOMED International Member Forum from 2019 to 2021. He leads New Zealand’s involvement in the interoperability workstream of the Global Digital Health Partnership.

Ryl Jensen
CEO
Digital Health Association (DHA)

Ryl Jensen is the Chief Executive Officer of the DHA with a background in IT having previously worked for the likes of IBM, EDS, and Merrill Lynch HSBC in London. She worked in Customer Relationship Management and Disaster Recovery, responsible for Service Level Agreements and Service Delivery Management. She has a strong customer focus and is passionate about health policy, research, and helping people. Ryl’s goal would be to see New Zealand’s Health System in a stronger, more resilient and connected position through digital health, driving better and more equitable health outcomes for all.

Ryl has been active in the Health and Disability Sector for a number of years, firstly being an advocate for women’s health and then later for digital interoperability. At a Government level she has written and contributed to health policy. She has a strong passion for the health sector, in particular digital health, and how it can be a key enabler to improve health outcomes and healthcare delivery.

Ryl has a Master of Health from Victoria University of Wellington, with a focus on health policy, planning, and systems structures. Her thesis completed in 2022 is titled Exploring a Digital Health Governance Framework for New Zealand - A mixed methods study.

Becky George
Clinical Director, Data and Digital - Hira
Te Whatu Ora - Health New Zealand

Becky is passionate about advocating for the safe and effective delivery of health care services, across the health and disability system, integrated with digital health and innovative technology. As Clinical Director with Data and Digital, Te Whatu Ora, she applies her extensive experience in clinical informatics and digital health to provide strategic leadership for the Hira Programme.

Becky is an Occupational Therapist, Doctoral student, Fellow of HiNZ, Associate Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Digital Health, Te Whatu Ora Liaison for CiLN, and was elected chair of the Health Informatics New Zealand Board for 2019 - 2021. She is driven by the belief in effective leadership, robust governance, and collaborative partnership across our services to achieve lasting change for consumers.

Becky has provided leadership to the co-design, implementation and change management of digital solutions across primary and secondary services. She co-authored the Allied Health National Data Set Standard (2018), and the 2020 position statements for Allied Health Leading Data and Digital Driven Services and Clinical Informatics Leadership.

Becky was also awarded the inaugural Clinical Informatics Leadership Award 2019, recognising the achievements of a clinician working in Digital health in New Zealand. She continues to champion effective change within our health and disability system for the benefit of our whānau and workforce.

Erin Currie
Country Manager
Philips

Erin is an experienced Business and Governance Leader in the healthcare sector with a career spanning 30 years. Her knowledge and expertise are in medical devices, equipment and digital healthcare across radiology, surgical specialties, cardiology, gastroenterology, and endoscopy. Originally a registered nurse, she then transitioned into medical device sales and developed an aptitude for management, commercial strategy, and governance.

Erin is currently New Zealand Country Manager for Philips Health Systems, part of the ANZ leadership team, after joining in November 2020. Previous roles included 6 years leading Olympus New Zealand, and 10 years with Medtronic in various roles including sales, sales management, and branch leadership.

Erin is passionate about the New Zealand healthcare sector and represents the industry as the President and Chair of the Medical Technology Association of New Zealand (MTANZ). She also has a passion for personal development and is a founding member of Women in HealthTech (WiHT).

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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.