Published on the 12/03/2025 | Written by Heather Wright

As HiNZ survey shows clinicians concerns over proposed cuts…

Health Minister Simeon Brown has raised hopes of a stay of execution for big cuts to New Zealand’s digital health services which a new report has warned could have ‘significant’ consequences for patient care and the healthcare workforce.

Health New Zealand is proposing to cut $100 million a year from the digital services budget, and cut staff numbers by 47 percent, to 1,285.

“Our [health] data systems are in dire need of upgrade.”

The cuts would come on top of more than $380 million earmarked for digital funding being recalled in Budget 2024. That funding, which had been set aside for the four years to 2027-28, was to be used to deliver the data and digital infrastructure and capability required to implement health system reforms.

Last week, Brown told the BusinessNZ Health Forum that investing in health infrastructure, both physical and digital, was a ‘key health priority’ with hospitals and data systems in ‘dire need of upgrade’.

“Health New Zealand is grappling with an outdated infrastructure that is inhibiting changes to models of care that improve patient outcomes and drive efficiencies,” he says, noting fragmented digital infrastructure, with an estimated 6,000 applications and 100 digital networks.

“That equates to roughly one application for every 16 Health New Zealand staff members, which is unsustainable.”

He later said he’s asked Health NZ to look at the proposed changes to ensure they will be able to support current systems.

The creation of a separate health infrastructure entity under Health New Zealand was also touted. It would manage and deliver both physical and digital assets.

The publishing of a long-term plan for health infrastructure is also planned, providing a 10-year pipeline of capital projects.

Brown slammed Health NZ and the decision to abolish 20 District Health Boards ‘overnight and replace them with a single centralised bureaucracy’ – reforms which stripped decision making from regions and districts with no plan for how it would actually help patients. Health NZ, in place for 2.5 years now, has ‘failed to come together as a cohesive team that supports the organisation to deliver for patients’ he adds.

A Health Informatics New Zealand (HiNZ) survey of 358 digital health experts from across the sector, more than a quarter of whom are involved in direct patient care, found 97.5 percent believe budget cuts will worsen or delay improvements to patient care. Ninety-five percent say it will affect the frontline health workforce.

The Future of Digital Health in Aotearoa New Zealand – Voice of the Workforce survey saw respondents reiterating the current poor state of IT in the sector. Respondents said outdated and underfunded IT systems are frequently crashing, delaying critical care and increasing the risk of errors, while 94.3 percent outlined how slow and less efficient IT systems are resulting in frontline staff spending more time on admin, and less time with patients.

Limited interoperability, highlighted by 95.5 percent of respondents, is leaving clinicians without a full picture of patient histories, resulting in wasted time searching for information and wasting resources and delaying care as clinicians refer patients for investigations that may be unnecessary, and increasing the likelihood of misdiagnoses.

The outdated and over-complicated systems are also impacting staff and creating frustration and stress and leading many to look for new jobs outside of the public healthcare system.

The report also notes grave concerns among respondents about the proposed cuts, with 72.6 percent anticipating longer wait times for patients in urgent, routine and preventative care due to the likelihood of increased inefficiencies in scheduling, diagnostics and information sharing as current systems fall even further behind.

Amplification of inequities, with poor data on some groups; increased risk of patient harm through fragmented care from gaps in data sharing; and a lack of ability for people to manage their own health through reduced investment in digital platforms such as patient portals and telehealth were also highlighted.

But the report also highlights ‘actionable opportunities’ for digital transformation in the sector, with a call for targeted investment across five key areas – national shared health records, AI-driven diagnostics, telehealth and remote patient monitoring expansion; real time hospital tracking, and predictive analytics.

“These solutions were identified as being most likely to both significantly reduce patient harm and achieve substantial cost savings.”

The implementation of shared health records was ‘overwhelmingly’ supported by clinicians. National shared health records have been shown to provide almost 10 percent savings in hospital related patient care costs the report says.