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With the first tranche of Health NZ’s Hira programme completed on 30 June, the organisation is now focusing on replacing its old and unstable payroll systems.
Hira is an ecosystem of data and digital services to enable access to a virtual electronic health record by drawing together a person’s latest health data from trusted sources, improving the way health information is accessed and shared.
The programme, which began in 2021, had delivered core interoperability components and building blocks for future digital health services, Health NZ told Parliament as part of its 2024/25 Budget estimates process.
Phase 1 of Hira delivered building blocks including an interoperability platform with a connector plane to provide secure access to health information and a digital services hub including a developer portal with API testing capabilities and identity and access protections.
As well as other new and enhanced functionality, Hira also delivered a national event management service, the first release of which enables services to be notified when someone died.
InterSystems became an early user of the Hira programme’s application programming interfaces (APIs) developed by Health New Zealand.
Alongside Hira, a three-year, $75.5 million cyber security uplift programme, initiated in 2021, targeted a phased improvement from an average maturity score of 1.7 to a target of 3.5, appears to have outperformed, achieving average maturity of 3.7 across key risk areas of risk with some reaching 4.
“Funding has been allocated to the internal cybersecurity function in 2024/25 to maintain the new systems, services and core cyber security operations,” Health NZ reported.
The payroll replacement effort, a multi-year $116 million investment dubbed the Health System Agreements and Payments Programme, will replace aged and unstable systems which process around 120 million claims and $13 billion in payments annually.
Deloitte won the contract to deliver and integrate the system in early 2022.
“At present, the three main components of the replacement system are in place and processing transactions with an annual value of about $425 million across nearly 500,000 claims,” Health NZ told Parliament.
The completion of the technology build is anticipated in early 2025, and the transition of all services from legacy systems is anticipated by the end of 2030.
Key challenges to that schedule related to developing and maintaining “cadence” in the transition of services and work to simplify policies, agreements, and business rules prior to transition.
Funding for 2024/25 was $20 million, rising to $21.2 million in 2025/26 and beyond.
Health NZ is currently being led by a commissioner after the government developed serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in the organisation’s financial outlook.