Will Australia follow NZ into a digital backwater if Dutton wins?

Recent happenings across the Tasman are cause for concern if a conservative government takes over in May 2025. Is the ADHA nervous?

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We don’t usually focus on New Zealand here at TMR and HSD – not because we don’t love our cuzzes over the sea, but because we’re usually up to our delicate pert noses in Australian news – but this week is somewhat of an exception. 

The latest doings at Health NZ might well put the fear of You Know Who through those working in the governmental digital health space here in Oz. 

For context, bear in mind that New Zealand changed its federal government literally just 12 months ago, from the centre-left Labour Party, led by Chris Hipkins, to the centre-right National Pary, led by Christopher Luxton.  

Like Australia, New Zealand has been working hard to shift towards digital technology and data-sharing in its health system. 

In May 2023 Leigh Donoghue, former health industry lead for ANZ/Asia Pacific with Accenture Australia, was appointed as Health NZ’s chief of data and digital, a role that the department’s website still calls “critically important in bringing about the system shifts required to achieve the aims of the health reforms, in particular developing a greater use of digital services to provide more care in homes and communities”. 

Mr Donoghue brought a certain pith to the role. At the Digital Health Association’s Parliamentary reception in July, he said New Zealand had “barely scratched the surface in terms of the digital health revolution,” and that healthcare needed “a new chassis”, reported Pulse IT. 

“A digital chassis that takes cost and friction out of the system. Freeing up clinicians to be more productive and deliver better care. The banger we’ve assembled over many years is not going to get us there,” he said. 

Well, now Mr Donoghue has been shown the door by Health NZ’s CEO Margie Apa. 

“As the reset of Health NZ progresses, I have looked at how I need to reshape the executive leadership team to help our focus on empowering the regions and delivering on health targets,” she said. 

That’s after health minister Shane Reti replaced the Health NZ board with a commissioner back in July. 

Add to that Ms Apa’s decision to implement a $100 million program of savings across the digital and data divisions of Health NZ. That’s on top of the $380 million that was taken out of the data and digital budget this year. 

NZ’s Digital Health Association CEO Ryl Jensen was quoted in Pulse IT recently saying: 

“That’s nearly half a billion dollars slashed from a fund that’s supposed to leverage New Zealand’s innovative digital technology sector and take our health sector into the 21st century. 

NZ, Ms Jensen said, was “already well behind in digital health technology investment compared to other countries”. 

“New Zealand spends between 2.5% and 3% of the total health budget on these technologies compared to international averages of between 5% and 8% and over 10% by countries at the forefront of this transformation,” she said.   

“Cuts like this just exacerbate the problem, pushing us further and further behind as a country. This could really undermine healthcare delivery in New Zealand for years to come.” 

Now think about where we are, here in Australia. 

Hundreds of millions of dollars are being poured into digital technologies, data-sharing, FIHR standards, the Australian Digital Health Agency, a national health information exchange, modernising the My Health Record, not to mention trying to get aged care providers to own a computer, let alone know how to use it effectively. 

And what do we have coming up – likely in May 2025? A federal election. 

A federal election which, if you believe the Murdoch press, will see Anthony Albanese’s government done over like a dog’s dinner. 

The question is how will a Peter Dutton government view the cash splash on interoperability in the healthcare system? 

If our sources inside the Department of Health and Aged Care are to be trusted, then yes, they are very conscious of the approaching poll, but not yet that nervous. 

Here at TMR, we hope their trust is not misplaced.