NEWS – eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth
The National Data Platform (NDP) has gone live with four datasets already added and three more to follow.
The NDP is a common platform for national datasets that were previously dispersed across the 28 entities that have now merged into Health New Zealand – Te Whatu Ora.
Accenture, in partnership with Acumen BI, is the design and implementation partner and the platform is being built on Snowflake and hosted on AWS.
Health Minister Shane Reti told a Digital Health Association (DHA) parliamentary event on 23 July that Health NZ has successfully completed the core foundation build of the NDP.
The platform will be the “common place for a range of health data, currently on different, disconnected platforms across the country. The first four data sets have now been added to the platform, and three more will follow”, he said.
Reti said the NDP “paves the way for targeted health interventions based on the needs of our changing population and will support a unified health system.”
“The NDP will provide data to help us analyse and understand things like medication uptake and demand, unmet need and service gaps, and alert public health issues. This is no small task and will be a programme of work over several years.”
The initial phase of the NDP was completed by June 30, 2024, and a group of Health NZ data analysts are now testing the platform.
The Medicines Data Repository (MDR) and Cardiovascular Disease Risk Assessment (CVDRA) datasets are already operational and providing insights to testers.
The latest NDP update says Trendcare, interRAI and Provation (endosocopy) data has also been onboarded.
Chief data and digital Leigh Donoghue says that the NDP is set to revolutionise the management of health data nationwide.
“This unified and standardised system will empower our data analysts and planners, improving the quality and efficiency of services, and supporting the achievement of our Government’s health objectives,” he says.
Health NZ says it has worked closely with the Privacy Commissioner to ensure the platform is both secure and private and its development has included input from the organisation’s Hauora Māori, privacy and cyber security teams. The platform also aligns with Māori data governance principles.
Accenture Aotearoa managing director health Will Reedy says, “we look forward to the next phase of data driven transformation enabled by the NDP to provide high value insights across the sector including national health targets, modifiable health behaviours and chronic conditions”.