How might we live up to our Digital Nations Commitment

As one of the founding members of Digital Nations - a network of the world's most advanced digital governments - Aotearoa New Zealand has committed to harnessing digital technology to improve citizens' lives. Yet in healthcare, we've fallen behind our peer nations in delivering on this promise. While we hold membership in this prestigious group committed to digital excellence, our healthcare systems demonstrate a gap between aspiration and reality.

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Strategic digitisation of healthcare offers a powerful solution. Estonia, a fellow Digital Nations member, is an incredible case study for what's possible. Their National Health Information System, operational since 2008, exemplifies the principles of user-centred design and open digital services: 99% of prescriptions are digital, every citizen has access to their complete health records online, and the system saves 2% of GDP through digital signatures alone. Their innovative healthcare system has improved patient outcomes, reduced medical errors, and made healthcare more accessible to all citizens. It’s time for us to catch up and embrace a similar bold transformation in New Zealand.

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In Aotearoa, our healthcare systems are under pressure. According to the Ministry of Health, many of our experienced healthcare workers are nearing retirement age, and our spread-out geography means that quality healthcare isn't easily accessible for everyone. Perhaps most concerning is the harsh reality that not everyone has equal access to the care they need - with our Māori and Pacific communities often facing the greatest barriers to good health outcomes.

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Living up to our Digital Nations commitment means turning these challenges into opportunities. The path to digital innovation must start with understanding the people who will use these systems - from healthcare professionals to patients and their whānau. As noted in our health whitepaper, "We need to digitise our services, but not our patients." This philosophy has guided our development of digital health solutions that enhance - rather than replace - human connection. Our commitment to human-centred design in healthcare has led us to tackle some of New Zealand's most pressing health challenges, from antibiotic resistance to mental health support and the COVID-19 pandemic response.

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Our latest project building New Zealand's National Antimicrobial Guidelines addresses one of New Zealand's significant healthcare challenges: being among the top five countries globally for antibiotic consumption per capita.

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Funded by Te Niwha, the national infectious diseases research platform, this project involved scientists from universities, crown and private research institutes in partnership with healthcare professionals, including infectious disease doctors, pharmacists, microbiologists, GPs, and nurses.

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They reached out to RUSH as a strategy, design and technology partner to bring to life an online, unified National Antimicrobial Guideline system to combine up to 20 different existing guidelines. We're privileged to play a role in creating another innovative digital health tool.

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When COVID-19 hit, we developed the NZ COVID Tracer app to help protect New Zealanders, their whānau and the community by giving contact tracers a head start with identifying anyone who may have been exposed to COVID-19. Our expertise in complex integrations proved crucial when developing the COVID Health Hub for the Ministry of Health, serving 60,000 unique visitors weekly in 10 languages. This was followed by CookSafe Plus for the Cook Islands government - the first interoperable contact tracing application in the southern hemisphere. We also assisted the UK’s NHS with their COVID response.

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These projects delivered secure data integration across multiple systems, privacy-first design principles, scalable healthcare solutions and cross-border interoperability.

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The Lowdown platform for rangatahi (young people) saw a 500% increase in organic traffic after launch by deeply understanding youth needs and cultural contexts. Headstrong's innovative approach to mental health support was built around extensive research with teenagers, leading to the development of personified chatbots that young people could relate to. And Ignite, a platform for employee wellbeing, achieves a 60% engagement rate compared to traditional EAP's 3-5%.

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However, to truly embody our Digital Nations membership, we must accelerate our digital healthcare systems further.

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The Future of Digital Health

Digital innovation, guided by human-centred design principles, presents a transformative opportunity in healthcare across Aotearoa. By focusing on both practitioners' and patients' needs, we can lower barriers to care while reducing administrative burdens on our healthcare workers and supporting clinical decision-making, ultimately creating a more efficient and accessible healthcare system. Technological solutions can help address many of the challenges we face in New Zealand:

• As highlighted in our whitepaper, practitioners and clinicians are at breaking point, suffering from burnout and stress due to unprecedented demand. AI-powered solutions can automate administrative tasks, freeing healthcare professionals to focus on patient care.
• Digital platforms can break down geographic barriers and make healthcare more accessible to underserved communities. In New Zealand, where rural communities often struggle to access healthcare, digital solutions can bridge critical gaps.
• AI presents a great opportunity to improve decision support and also automate processes to lower the friction to patient outcomes.
• Paper-based systems and fragmented digital solutions increase the risk of medical errors. Integrated digital systems, like Estonia's national health platform, ensure healthcare providers have access to complete, accurate patient information when they need it.
• Healthcare costs continue to climb, straining public resources. Digital innovation can reduce administrative overhead, prevent duplicate tests, and enable more efficient care delivery.
• Modern patients expect the same digital convenience in healthcare that they experience in other aspects of their lives. They want access to their health information, online booking systems, and virtual care options.

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We have a chance to build digital solutions to solve some of New Zealand challenges - ones that:

• Put Te Tiriti o Waitangi at the heart of everything we do
• Make sure everyone has fair access to quality healthcare
• Help clinicians prescribe and medicate more wisely
• Make it easier for people to get mental health support when they need it
• Free up healthcare workers to spend more time with patients

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The urgency for digital innovation in healthcare in New Zealand has never been greater. As a founding member of Digital Nations, New Zealand has both the opportunity and the obligation to demonstrate leadership in digital healthcare innovation. We need to build systems that work for both our healthcare professionals and the people they care for. Explore how we can help you create better health outcomes for humankind here.

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