From Strategy to Reality - The WAVE ProjectDate of publication: October 2001
ISBN 0 477 01957 9 (Book)
ISBN 0 477 01958 7 (Internet)
Foreword
 | David Caygill
Chair
WAVE Advisory Board |
The WAVE project began under a different title. In December last year the Director-General of Health, Dr Karen Poutasi, invited 13 of us to join something then called the "Health Information Management and Technology Plan Advisory Board". In time this gave way to WAVE: Working to Add Value through E-information.
The task of overseeing this plan has been both challenging and absorbing. From diverse backgrounds, the Board members brought a common commitment to New Zealand’s health services and a shared belief that better means of organising health information need to be employed.
The electronic revolution that began at the end of the twentieth century holds out the prospect of many advances for health services. To capture these opportunities requires agreement on common standards, languages, methodologies and other techniques, and ultimately in our view a new approach to health organisation. The WAVE project has sought to answer these challenges. After months of examining the issues, the Advisory Board concluded that the top priority is to establish an agency, to oversee and drive common information technology issues in the health sector. Without such a new organisation there is a risk that this project will have to be repeated in a few years’ time. The health sector needs real competence and strength in its information management. It is imperative that this capability grows and develops in a systematic manner.
These arguments are made in more detail in the report that follows. Its core chapters reflect the separate work streams into which the WAVE project was divided. To some extent the separation between these work streams was artificial. Hopefully reading the chapters as a whole will build a picture of the present state of information management and technology in the health sector, as well as of what is needed in the future.
Each work stream consulted widely with a diverse range of interested parties and in a variety of different ways. The individual work streams reported regularly to the Board and ultimately recommended approaches that form the substance of this combined report. The Board’s job became one of directing the work streams in the first instance and then of bringing together and synthesising the individual project reports. Ultimate responsibility for the recommendations lies with the Board.
It has been a privilege to chair the Advisory Board. I have greatly enjoyed working with other members as we grappled with (for some of us, at least) unfamiliar terminology and concepts. I know I speak for other members of the Advisory Board when I express our thanks to David Moore and the members of the project team who gave so freely of their time and expertise. Particular thanks are due to David for his outstanding leadership. But to everyone who contributed their time or merely shared their knowledge or opinions, I express the Board’s thanks.
I hope the report that follows will encourage its readers to continue to seek better ways of recording, sharing, analysing and using health information. I am confident that taking these steps together will significantly enhance New Zealand’s health and disability services and the health of New Zealanders.
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