HAWKES BAY DISTRICT Health Board is one of 20 DHBs in New Zealand, serving around 155,000 people. The district covers the area on the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand and includes the populations of the following Territorial Local Authorities: Wairoa District, Hastings District, Napier City, Central Hawke’s Bay District and Chatham Islands Territory.

The 44-member ICT team works with over 2,500 staff, making the DHB one of the largest employers in the area. The DHB facilities include a 400-bed secondary hospital, an 11-bed rural hospital and two community centres.

Gina McEwen, head of information services, says a key focus for the ICT team is the ongoing implementation of the Central Region Information Systems Plan.

The project aims to achieve greater interoperability with the other central Region DHBs – Whanganui, MidCentral, Wairarapa, Hutt Valley and Capital & Coast.

This is in line with the National Health IT Plan for each region to operate a common platform to support the delivery of integrated health services. The goal is to create an integrated regional clinical system that will be available to clinicians in the primary, secondary and tertiary settings. A key component is creating the information infrastructure that supports making patient information available to the right health care providers in the right place and at the right time.

Across Hawkes Bay DHB, the staff are working on a shared electronic health record, mobility, and an integrated system with primary and secondary care, says McEwen.

Recently, the DHB launched a website www.ourhealthhb.

nz that provides information on health conditions and services available in the district. Hawkes Bay.

McEwen says investments will continue on security/risk management technologies, enterprise architecture, VoIP/ unified communications, videoconferencing and telepresence She says some of the issues thw DHB will face are meeting the changing needs of the business, delivering reliability and agility/speed of deployment.