20 Aug 2020

Covid-19: Hospitals urged to upgrade IT

From Morning Report, 7:37 am on 20 August 2020

The Director-General of Health is urging district health boards to change their spending to upgrade hospitals' IT systems in the wake of Covid-19.

Dr Ashley Bloomfield said "very serious consideration" should be given to digital and data projects in the coming year to allow more staff to work from home, more remote patient consults and better data sharing. It's not clear where the funding should come from.

Dr Ruth Large is chair of the Telehealth Leadership Group and a senior doctor at Waikato DHB.