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
• Graeme Osborne - Director

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.

Graeme Osborne - Director: Leading the Execution of the National Health IT Plan

During the past 12 months, Graeme has led the establishment of the IT Health Board as the Executive Chair. 

The Board is responsible for health IT leadership in the sector and has recently undertaken detailed work to identify the sector’s health IT priorities. This work will enable better understanding of which health solutions should be delivered at a national, regional or local level. From this priority analysis a more detailed programme of work can now be developed.

Graeme is now leading delivery of this programme as Director of the National Health IT Board. One of its priorities is delivery of a National Health IT Plan by 30 June 2010. The draft plan currently supports improvements in the quality and delivery of health care services, underpins new models of care, and seeks to deliver better value for money.

Prior to his work with the IT Health Board, Graeme was the General Manager, Information Management, ACC.  At this time Graeme was also the Chair of the Health Information Strategy Advisory Committee (HISAC) which at the direction of the Minister of Health became the IT Health Board (known formally as the National Health Information Technology Board).  

Graeme was the Group Manager, Information and Business Services, Statistics New Zealand (2001 to 2006). He has considerable experience working in the financial, health insurance and information technology fields.

Graeme obtained a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Marketing from Canterbury University in 1986. He is a member of the Land Information New Zealand Audit Committee (2008 to present), a member of the e-GIF Management Committee (2003 to present), a trustee of the Computer Access New Zealand (CANZ) Trust, and a member of the Institute of Directors (2008 to present). He was a member of the Health Intranet Governance Board (1996 to 2000), a member of the Telecommunications User Association of New Zealand (TUANZ) Board (1996 to 2007), and a member of the Digital Strategy Advisory Group (2005 to 2008).