About 5 or 6 months ago I started thinking about creating a place for like-minded people who would like to talk about emerging technologies and innovation in Health - Something like “AI Forum NZ”, but specific for emerging and innovative technologies (if this makes any sense).
I, in fact, created a HealthTech MeetUp Group to gauge the uptake of the idea; some people subscribed to it and read my random posts about the subject.
Then I was invited to this amazing community and simply got too busy to even think about it again.
I have some time on my hands now, so I was wondering if this is something worth exploring?
Hi Diego,
The Ministry of Health runs a Yammer group on Emerging Health Technology. It is moderated by the Emerging tech division in the Ministry. Here’s the link to it: https://www.yammer.com/emerginghealthtechnology/#/home
Yup, the Yammer community the @mahalia recommends seems ideal for you.
We do have a fragmentation issue with forums dedicated to Digital Health here in NZ. Yammer is ‘included’ with the Microsoft suites that most DHBs and lots of other health organisations have signed up to - this of course includes the Ministry of Health.
The Clinical Informatics Leadership Network (CiLN) chose to go with Discourse instead as it is Open Source and far more customisable / adaptable, the data is freely accessible and movable, and the UK health informatics community has proven its effectiveness and value for money. Oh, and it isn’t vulnerable to Microsoft pulling the pin one day.
If the desire was there from all involved, we would certainly be willing and able to host such a community on Health Forum NZ.
Thank you both for the reply, I have signed up to that group.
I will say though, I meant a more “open” group. I often see people from different walks of life who have amazing ideas but don’t really know about this group (or any HealthTech related for that matter).
So, I guess, my idea is more around a group where anybody who’s passionate or interested about HealthTech/Digital in Health could come and listen (both digitally and physically) to people like yourselves talk or generate conversations.
Does that make sense?
I agree that an open platform like discourse is better than any of the hyperscalers, particularly because of the ownership of the data as well as, like you mentioned, the risk of them pulling the plug.
So you mean having these sorts of conversations in the open? That is a very interesting idea, but one that many of us naturally shy away from.
I’m personally deeply passionate about ‘consumer’ engagement in health; however, it is hard to achieve this if the ‘consumer’ isn’t invited to listen let alone participate in the conversations. This is the model that most of our health organisations have been operating on all of their lives.
@graeme.norton, I’d love to hear your perspective on this.
I don’t mean all conversations in the open, though. I think there’s a curation that would need to happen in the subjects brought forward, specially in meetups.
But including different SMEs, as well as interdisciplinary conversations might have a positive effect on shaping the internal conversations we may have in here later on.
Opening the doors a little bit would also bridge the notion that these conversations are in fact happening at closed doors.
Again, not talking about opening NZHF to everybody (although I feel lucky to be here, so thank you for that) but more around opening the tech/digital/disruption conversations to an open(er) forum where people like me, who have no real attachment to healthcare in the traditional sense, can participate, share opinions, ideas; learn and teach.
Imagine this,
Session 1: A health practitioner talks about some disruption they see in their field and share thoughts and ideas and answer questions.
Session 2: A tech profesional/disruptor comes and tells us about how IoT (insert here any innovative, emerging tech*) technology is disrupting a field and answers questions about that specific thing.
Session 3: All together discuss about COVID-19 and how it changed the healthcare world.
Session 4: Health Practitioner talks about challenges and how they see technology changing that, maybe a panel with 2 techs and 2 health practitioners.
Then an open webpage where we share news, thoughts, talks, podcasts and more. We could create a NFP organisation that fosters collab between tech and health. There is SO much potential.
We could leverage our networks to have guest speakers and interviews and so much more.
I’d be stoked to help creating something like this; there’s a gap between tech and health and this could help bridging it like I said above.
Sorry, I went on for too long, but I am very passionate about this
We’ll take you up on that, Diego. Let’s have a chat:
Do note that healthforum.nz isn’t just about tech - it is about connecting up all health professionals, which includes those (like yourself) who apply IT to health as well as many other flavours. It isn’t a Digital Health forum per se - it is a forum for all health professionals, which is digitally enabled.
Sorry for the delay in response Nathan. Agree with the question and your response. NZ health system is systemically weak around continuing consumer engagement in decision making at all levels. Sandra Coney did some work for NZ Guidelines Group back in 2004. It is an indictment that we have moved very little in the succeeding 16 years. There are pockets of good but…. I have attached a couple of slides to provoke.
The first “Opportunities Ahead of Us” is fairly self-explanatory. In my view we (health system) are currently stuck somewhere between the Past and Present columns and are stubbornly refusing to move to the Future. If we don’t move we are relegated to patching up people to go back to their same lived circumstances and not participating in enduring solutions. Consumers can help committed health professionals to move their thinking and action.
The second “Who Really Controls Outcomes” comes from the Nuka health system in Alaska. That system has placed their customers in the “ownership” position and the outcomes have been transformative. We have deep inequity of outcomes in health in NZ, in part, because there is a systemic failure to understand and embrace the worldview of those who most need our support and deliver services in that context instead of demanding they move to ours. These are generalisations. There are pockets of wonderful work in NZ. We do not need to look offshore for solutions but we do need to get over ourselves.
What is the impact of this for information and technology? A fundamental understanding of our direction and solutions is required to answer the question of “what data matters” and who’s data s it anyway. And is the system literate in the ways in which it will be useful to those who can make the most difference.
Enough for this post. I have more ammo but can save that for a follow up salvo. As a parting beacon of some hope here is a link to Consumers Health Forum of Australia www.chf.org.au Far be if for me to promote an Aussie solution (just kidding) but they are a lot further ahead than us on systemic consumer engagement in health decision making and we could learn and implement a NZ style version of this and be a lot better for it.
