The Ministry of Health has developed a Data and Information Strategy for Health and Disability to set clear priorities for the sector on how to improve the ways we manage, use and share health and disability data and information.
Stronger evidence, better decisions, improved health and wellbeing | Hei whakapakari ake i ngā taunakitanga, ngā whakataunga me te hauora o te tangata.
The health and disability system is good at collecting large amounts of data but less effective at connecting and using that data. Further, not all information is digitised and where it is there is variation in the way data is recorded. Data is often duplicated which makes it challenging and expensive to ensure the system is working with data from a trusted source.
While there are a number of problems with the current environment, there has never been a better time to invest in our data system. Technologies that generate and record data and enable the production of insights have never been more abundant or accessible. Our ability to provide access to data across the system in near real-time, has never been better and we have demonstrated our ability to build a modern and effective data system through the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. To harness the power of data and technology ethically, equitably and effectively we need to lift our capability to manage data across the health and disability system.
This Strategy advises the health and disability sector of significant changes needed to get the best value from data and information collected and to ensure people have as much control as possible over their personal health information.
The Strategy identifies five priority areas in which the system needs to improve to derive greater value from data and information:
- data foundations
- equity and data sovereignty
- consumer participation
- people and leadership
- data accessibility.
The Health and Disability System Review identified quality data and information as critical for:
- consumer empowerment
- better patient safety, care and health
- new models of care that require clinicians across different settings to have access to real-time patient data
- decision-making and research that require timely access and analytical capacity to extract meaning from large datasets
The Strategy was developed to be agnostic of system structures and instead to be useful to any set of institutions that combine to oversee, plan, fund and deliver health and disability services. It is therefore able to support building a new and improved health and disability system as outlined in the Government’s reforms.
The Strategy includes an accompanying Roadmap which identifies the key actions to be taken in each priority area within the next two years.