Consumer Panel
Over 50,000 health consumers visit general practice services every day in New Zealand, with around 1,700 people admitted to hospital. Many more thousands of people make daily visits to pharmacists, dentists and other primary care professionals.
Consumer engagement is essential to ensuring that health information solutions are person-centred and people-focused.
The Consumer Panel
The Consumer Panel has been initiated to support the delivery of the IT Health Board priority projects. Health information is uniquely personal. Privacy and access rules are absolutely essential to public confidence, and the Consumer Panel has been established to represent the needs of the health consumer.
This page is dedicated to consumers of the health system, and our ongoing engagement.
- About the Consumer panel members
The panel comprises about 20 ordinary New Zealanders. They come from a mixture of walks of life, ethnicities, age groups, regions and health status. Some have a background in the health sector as consumer representatives, but all are there to wear their 'consumer hats' - scrutinising the details of the projects to make sure every aspect is optimised for the average user.
- What do they do?
Panel members meet three or four times a year to compare notes. More importantly, they go into the many governance groups and project teams that are working on various components of shared care. They look at everything from a consumer perspective, and make input constantly.
Currently members of the panel have been assigned as members of about 10 groups, governing a diverse range of projects including long-term conditions, health identity, medications management, standards, maternity care, and Telehealth. They are also attached to umbrella groups such as the national clinical leadership group, and several more localised programmes.
Panel members have no constraints put on them other than integrity and common sense. The panel is not the 'final word' on consumer issues - as the programme matures there will be a great deal of opportunity for input through many channels.
Members of the panel change from time to time, and expressions of interest to be a panel member are always welcome. Any ideas should be sent to the Acting chair of the panel, enquiries@ithealthboard.health.nz.
Shared Health Information Seminars 2012
The National Health IT Board (NHITB) recently held a series of public and community seminars to discuss improvements to the way personal health information is shared electronically.
By the end of 2014 the Government's aim is for all New Zealanders and the health professionals caring for them to have electronic access to their health information.
The seminars were an opportunity to provide updates on progress and to gather feedback, and they follow on from the NHITB's 2010 Future of Health workshops.
Public seminars have been held in New Plymouth, Invercargill, Auckland, and Nelson. Community seminars for Asian and Pacific peoples, as well as older people and students, have also been held, and a forum for Maori was held in the Bay of Plenty in early September. A number of DHB briefings have also been held to discuss the impact of the changes on health staff. Find out more here
Community Workshops (July-August 2010)
The National Health IT Board, in association with the Telecommunications Users Association of NZ (TUANZ), ran a series of seven community workshops across the country through July and August 2010.
The findings from the workshop series can here in this The Future of Health - Enabled by Information - Summary Document (PDF, 44.0KB)
