HISO committee

HISO committee members are drawn from a number of different organisations and groups.

Richard Medlicott  (Chair)
Primary Care Information Management Group
Richard is a GP in Island Bay, Wellington.  He has an interest in health information, and is involved in various health IM groups, including chair of PCIM and Compass Health IM group. He is a member of the IHTSDO Primary Care Special Interest Group and the Medtech Advisory Group.

Deborah Rowe
The Nursing Council of New Zealand 
Deborah has worked in the public health sector for a number of years in a variety of roles. She has significant knowledge and expertise gained from a number of healthcare settings that she has worked in.

Deborah (Ngāi Tahu) currently has a joint appointment between Auckland District Health Board as a Nurse Consultant and the University of Auckland as a Lecturer and a Senior Staff Nurse at the Women’s Health Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Prior to this was a Clinical Charge Nurse at National Women’s Hospital for eight years.

Deborah currently serves on a number of committees involved in health, Māori Advisory Committee National Screening Unit, Newborn Screening Advisory Committee, ECART, Nursing Council Māori Advisory Committee, Quality and Safety Committee the University of Auckland. Deborah also serves on the Board of Nursing Council of New Zealand.

Deborah has previously been chair of the Regional Committee of the Richmond Fellowship of New Zealand and a part time community support worker for the Intellectually Handicapped of New Zealand. She has delivered numerous lectures both nationally and internationally. She currently holds professional memberships with the Centre for Evidence Based Nursing Aotearoa, the New Zealand Nurses Organisation and the College of Nurses.

Deborah is currently completing a PhD at the University of Auckland and has a Master of Health Science and a Master of Management from the University of Auckland. She also has a PGDipHm, BHSc, RNComp.

Dougal McKechnie
Chief Executive, New Zealand Health IT Cluster
In a career spanning over twenty years Dougal has worked in a wide variety of public and private sector organisations in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. He has significant information and knowledge management expertise gained from a variety of professional disciplines and settings.

Dougal is the Chief Executive of the New Zealand Health IT Cluster - a vibrant alliance of vendors and supporting members including academia, healthcare providers and policy makers. Vendor members represent multi-nationals and local companies providing information and technology solutions and services to the health sector. Cluster membership currently stands at over 70 organisations (and growing) and vendor members generate conservatively estimated revenue of around NZ$287 million per annum.

Prior to the Cluster, Dougal was manager of the Health Information Strategy Advisory Committee an independent statutory body established by the Minister of Health to provide governance, oversight and leadership for the implementation of the eHealth strategy in New Zealand. In this role he established strong clinical, consumer and executive networks across the health and disability system.

Before joining the health sector he worked for the Ministry of Justice, Treasury, Commerce Commission and Opus International Consultants. In the United Kingdom he worked for a number of blue chip firms including global architectural firm DEGW, British Airways, Price Waterhouse and Arthur Andersen.

Dougal has served on numerous committees involved in health, eGovernment, information management and professional initiatives and currently is a member of the Health Information Standards Governance Group. Dougal has a Masters of Business Information Innovation from RMIT University in Melbourne.

Barbara Robson
Consumer Representative
I have been involved in health and disability consumer advocacy for more than 20 years. While maintaining a broad interest in and knowledge of both the health and disability sectors, my special interest has been in women’s health. I have been a consumer representative on a number of national screening and maternity advisory groups in the past, as well as the national Oral Health Advisory Group. I was a founding member of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs Consumer Representative Network.  

My involvement with health information initiatives began with my appointment to the Ministry of Health’s NHI Upgrade Programme Steering Group in 2003. I was a co-opted member of the National Collections Sub-committee of HISAC and assisted with the establishment of the HISAC Consumer Forum. I was a panellist on the Law Commission’s Health and Privacy Forum (2007) and the Privacy Commissioner’s Privacy Awareness Forum (2008). I was a consumer expert to the Citizens’ Jury convened by Otago University (2008) regarding researcher access to identifiable information without consent to identify adverse effects of medicines. I have participated in Ministry of Health workshops on the Retention and Future Use of Newborn Metabolic Blood Spot Cards and the Safe Sharing of Health Information.

I have been a Co-convenor of the Federation of Women’s Health Councils since 2000 and a consumer advisor on the HDC Consumer Advisory Group since 2003. I am also involved in the Central Region DHBs’ Consumer Representatives Forum, the National Health IT Board's Consumer Panel and the Governance Board of the Health Identity Project. I have been an elected member of MidCentral DHB Board since 2001 and as part of that role, serve as Chair of the Enable New Zealand Governance Group.

Zeeman van der Merwe
Accident Compensation Corporation
Zeeman has been involved in the IT industry for a number of decades initially in the academic field and later working for public and private organisations in the IT, healthcare and financial industries.

Before moving to New Zealand from South Africa, he was involved in the administration of medical aid schemes and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). He also served on the national committee responsible for Private and Public Healthcare Information Standards in South Africa known as PHISC.

He is currently the manager for Information Integrity and Analysis at ACC with responsibility for information provision to ACC, ACC stakeholders and government agencies.

Zeeman currently represents ACC at a number of organisations including Statistics New Zealand, Ministry of Health and the Department of Labour. He is also a member of the ACC Ethics committee. He holds academic qualifications in Economics, IT, and Marketing.

Darren Douglass
DHB CIO Forum
Darren has over 20 years experience in a variety of IT management roles in the UK and NZ health sectors.  He has significant knowledge and experience of the use of information and information technology to deliver business and clinical value in a wide range of public healthcare settings.

Darren is the Chief Health Information Officer at HIQ Limited,  a subsidiary of Taranaki District Health Board, focused on enabling optimum healthcare for the Taranaki district and the wider NZ health sector through the provision of shared information, communication and technology services.  HIQ provides information and technology services to Taranaki DHB and a number of other DHBs and health organisations across NZ. Darren was instrumental in establishing HIQ in 2003 and in maintaining its focus on delivering value to the health sector.

Darren is a member of the Midland Region and National DHB CIO Groups, Chairperson of the national Sector Architects Group and the 20 DHBs Information Portfolio Manager. He is actively involved in a range of other sector committees and strategic initiatives in a variety of roles.

Darren has a Bachelor of Management Studies from Waikato University and is a Certified Professional in Health Information and Management Systems.

Stephen Purchas
Chief Medical Officers Forum
Stephen is a General Surgeon primarily at Hutt Hospital but also Boulcott Hospital.  He is also Clinical IS advisor to HVDHB.  

He has been involved in development of the electronic clinical record at Hutt Hospital for 10 years, the development of a computerised clinical audit system at Hutt Hospital and has lectured on electronic clinical records at seminars and to clinical students.

He is also currently the Chairperson of HVDHB CUG (Clinical Users Group), the Chairperson of HVDHB CAG (Clinical Audit Group) and a member of HVDHB PSG (Patient Safety Leadership Group). He is also the Past Chairperson of HVDHB SECCIS (Security Committee for Clinical Information Systems).

Dr Richard Acland
The Medical Council of New Zealand
Dr Rick Acland is the Medical Council NZ representative on HISO. He has been a member of Council since 2006.

He has a keen interest in the translation of appropriate health information to improve patient outcomes. Dr Acland is now less of an IT dinosaur since joining the HISO committee. He practises in rehabilitation medicine, specifically in chronic pain and spinal cord impairment.  

Donna Cormack

Māori Health Interests

Donna Cormack (Kai Tahu, Kati Mamoe) is a Senior Research Fellow at Te Rōpū Rangahau Hauora e Eru Pomare, Department of Public Health, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Otago, Wellington.  She has been involved in research on Maori health and ethnic disparities in health and health care. In recent years, her work has focussed on ethnicity data theory, collection and quality issues, and on the impacts of racism on indigenous health. She has a strong, ongoing interest in data quality and measurement issues, particularly as they relate to understanding and addressing health inequalities.

Donna has Bachelors degree from Massey University, and Masters and Doctorate Degrees in Arts and Social Sciences from Waikato University. She is also a current member of the National Clinical Cancer Information Leadership Group and the Health Identity Sector Advisory Group.

Denise Irvine  R.N., MBS (Health Service Management)

HINZ Representatve

Denise has been involved in health informatics for the last ten years. Publishing and presenting, both nationally and internationally, when she held a position as a lecturer at WINTEC. These publications and presentations were mainly in the area of ehealth and telehealth. Denise is on the executive of Health Informatics New Zealand (HINZ)  member of the Telehealth Leadership Forum, and the HINZ representative on Health Information Standards Organisation (HISO) . Also the representative for New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) on the International Council of Nurses (ICN) telenursing network 

Kathy Farndon
Manager, Health Solutions and Standards, Ministry of Health