Board members

The details below demonstrate the range of skills and experience that each member brings to the IT Health Board.

• Dr Murray Milner - Chair
• Tony Foulkes
• Dr Chris Hendry
• Nigel Millar
• Elizabeth Plant
• Sue Wood
• Dr Tane Taylor

Dr Murray Milner - Chair

Dr Milner has spent most of his 37 years in the information computer technology industry with Telecom New Zealand, rising to become Chief Technology Officer during the first half of this decade. In this role, Murray has overseen transformation of the New Zealand Telecoms environment into a high performance internet provider core network offering leading edge services throughout the country.

Murray now runs a busy consulting practice in New Zealand, and works extensively with both central and local government on ICT strategy and infrastructure development. He has been advising on the Connected Health programme for over two years. He is also a Director of Christchurch City Networks Limited, which is deploying dark fibre infrastructure for the city of Christchurch.

Murray travels extensively as part of his work, and brings an international perspective, including technology and economic benchmarks to his consulting practice to complement his extensive experience in New Zealand. He also has direct links with university research into the performance optimisation of broadband and IP networks, and is guiding the development of leading edge tools for this purpose in his role as Chairman of MediaLab.

Tony Foulkes

Tony Foulkes has wide-ranging health sector experience spanning 20 years in both New Zealand and the United Kingdom.  He has a Post Graduate Certificate in Health Economics and an MSc in Information Systems Management. Tony is currently Chief Executive of the Taranaki District Health Board.

Dr Chris Hendry

Chris has been a nurse and a midwife in New Zealand for many years, having worked in a variety of settings and roles. Over the past 10 years Chris has worked on contract for a number of government health agencies and District Health Boards in service auditing, contract management and strategic planning. Chris has a particular interest in the provision of community based health services, particularly maternity and rural health services.

Chris is the Executive Director of the Midwifery and Maternity Provider Organisation, which provides 'virtual' practice management services to over 850 self-employed midwives and small maternity hospitals throughout New Zealand. In this role, she is involved in the development of the electronic maternity record.

Chris is also the founding director of the New Zealand Institute of Community Health Care (Nurse Maude Research Centre) which supports research projects focusing on developing, enabling and evaluating the provision of health care in the community. 

Nigel Millar

Nigel Millar is the Chief Medical Officer at Canterbury District Health Board (DHB). As part of the Executive Management Team, he provides advice to the Board of Canterbury DHB and management on clinical governance and clinical standards. He also provides strategic leadership and professional support for clinical staff in hospitals and community services.

Nigel spends about one third of his time involved in clinical work at the Princess Margaret and Christchurch Hospitals.

Specialising in geriatric and general medicine, Nigel is a graduate from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He is also a Fellow of InterRAI International.

Elizabeth Plant

Elizabeth Plant is the Chief Pharmacist for the Taranaki District Health Board (DHB), responsible for the hospital pharmacy. She is also Portfolio Manager for Funding and Planning, overseeing the provision of all pharmaceutical services to the region.

 Elizabeth is a member of:

• Safe Medication Management (SMM) Steering Group
• New Zealand Safe Quality Use of Medicines Committee (SQM)
• New Zealand DHBNZ Pharmacy Advisory Group (PAG).

She was also a founding member of the Hospital Pharmaceutical Advisory Committee (HPAC) for PHARMAC and a member of the Health Information Strategy Action Committee (HISAC) Sector Champions Group 2008.

Most recently Elizabeth has been the co-ordinator of the new National Services Framework for Pharmacists, involving the development of five new pharmacist services and medicine review. She undertook "The Analysis of Workforce and Service Delivery Models across New Zealand Hospital Pharmacies in 2001 and 2003". Elizabeth was the recipient of the National Supreme Award and the winner of the Innovation in Hospital Pharmacy Awards of the Zuellig/Pharmacy Today Awards in 2000 due to the implementation of Pyxis Automated Drug Distribution Systems.

During her 11 years at Taranaki, Elizabeth has been responsible for:

• the first installation of the Ascribe Pharmacy Computer System into the Southern Hemisphere
• the first Pyxis Automated Drug Distribution installation into a New Zealand Hospital and
• the first installation of Pyxis "cubies" and the Pyxis CII Controlled Drug System into the Asia Pacific region.

Currently she is facilitating the implementation of a software solution for managing medicines reconciliation at Taranaki DHB.

Elizabeth has also assisted in developing the business case for the Safe Medication Management Project (SMM) "Bar-Coding at the Bedside for Secondary Services", announced by the Minster of Health in May 2007.

Sue Wood

RGON BScAdvN, MNS, FCNA

Sue Wood is the Director of Nursing MidCentral Health.

Sue has been a nurse for 34 years, working clinically in NZ (8 years) and Melbourne as a nurse educator in cardiology and quality improvement at the Royal Melbourne Hospital for 12 years and director of nursing for 14 years in New Zealand.

Sue is the Chair of the Central Region Clinical Board, holds the diabetes and cancer portfolios for the Directors of Nursing, is a member of the CRISP Steering Group (Central Region), is a College representative on NPAC-NZ, is the immediate past chair of the DHBs Directors of Nursing group (3 years) and immediate past co-chair of the Safe Staffing Healthy Workplaces Governance Group (DHBs and NZNO; 5 years). 

Dr Tane Taylor

Tane Arataki Taylor FRNZCGP, FACNEM, descendent of Tainui, Te Arawa, Takitimu, English and Scottish, is a general practitioner working mostly in South Auckland. He is a consultant to East Tamaki Healthcare Group and Advisor to the Centre for Advanced Medicine Ltd in Auckland.

He is the Chair of Te Akoranga a Maui (Maori faculty), Member of the Education Expert Advisory Group RNZCGP, and member of RNZCGP Council.

He has completed in excess of 160 visits as an Assessor for the Cornerstone Practice Accreditation, he has also completed in excess of 110 GP Fellowship assessments.

Dr Taylor has a great interest in undergraduate/postgraduate education and Professional standards. He is a GP teacher, PRIMEX examiner. He has been involved with clinical guidelines development projects.

Recently he was a member on the MSD Health & Disability Reform Advisory Panel.