Data services, national collections, analytics and coding will be brought together under a new interim Director of Data and Information at Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora as part of a proposed restructuring at the organisation.
This team will sit under a newly named directorate, System Planning Performance and Improvement, previously called Service Improvement and Innovation (SI&I), led by Dale Bramley.
A consultation document, leaked to RNZ, says that under the proposal, “structures responsible for Data Services, National Collections as well as leads managing coders in HSS (Hospital & Specialist Services ) would shift to report to the new interim Director Data and Information team.
“This brings the end-to-end journey of data collection, its extraction, aggregation, validation and reporting under a single senior leader.”
The ‘Lifting performance by empowering regions’ document outlines the large new directorate and the loss of a number of high-level roles, including the national directors of HSS and Commissioning.
The interim Director of Data and Information role is for 12-months and a new position of Group Manager Coding would be created.
“We are proposing that current district clinical coding managers and their teams in HS&S will shift into the Data and Information team to ensure the function for data collection sits alongside the functions for aggregation and reporting,” it says.
Under the current structure, coding sits within Hospital Specialist Services while data services and national collections sit under Data and Digital and analytics sits within Service Improvement and Innovation.
“We are proposing to shift national teams responsible for performance improvement, commissioning and data reporting under the accountability of one executive leader, the National Director System Planning, Performance and Improvement and to consolidate the functions responsible for the collection, aggregating and reporting of data under one senior leader within System Planning, Performance and Improvement,” the document says.
“Bringing these functions together will ensure we will support important initiatives such as National Health Target reporting sufficiently.
“The current spread of accountability for timeliness and quality of data across multiple leadership roles risks ongoing working in silos.”
Four new deputy chief executives (DCEs) have now been appointed who will have accountability for regional delivery of healthcare and will work with the ‘enabling functions’ such as Data and Digital.
The consultation document says the National Director, System Planning, Performance and Improvement and the DCEs must establish a way of working that enables regions access to data and analytic support that is responsive to their operational needs.
“Over the next 12 months we may shift more functions and/or resources as required. During this time, the level of servicing (quantity and quality) will be negotiated with enabling functions – Finance, People & Communications, Data & Digital, Infrastructure and Investment to ensure prioritisation within available resources and responsiveness to service needs,” it says.
Digital Health Association chief executive Ryl Jensen says it would beneficial for industry partners to understand a clear rationale for the change.
“We must avoid restructuring for the sake of restructuring, especially when the sector has already experienced significant changes over the past two years,” she says.
“More importantly, we must not increase the disparity of our technology solutions across the health system by siloing critical verticals. You cannot have digital without data and vice versa. We need to remain resolute in integrating data and digital to advance our health system and improve health outcomes.”
Consultation on the restructure ends on 7 August with a final decision made and communicated by 14 August, 2024.
A Health New Zealand spokesperson says the organisation cannot comment at this stage as they need time to consult with and support staff who are only just finding out what the changes might mean for them.