Health Minister Jonathan Coleman has congratulated this year’s Clinicians Challenge winners for their innovative IT solutions to improve healthcare.

‘It’s great to see clinicians continuing to push the boundaries of digital healthcare through innovative thinking,” says Dr Coleman.

“Winning this year’s Clinicians Challenge is a significant achievement given the quality of entries received.

“The competition fosters creative thinking and encourages frontline healthcare professionals to find new ways of using digital health solutions.

“It’s great to see clinicians making better use of IT to deliver more timely, quality patient care, as well as improving staff productivity.”

Dr Mark Fisher, an anaesthetist at Counties Manukau DHB, won the top prize in the new ideas category for his shared preoperative workbench for elective surgery initiative.

His smart system makes the preoperative pathway visible and transparent to the entire multidisciplinary team, combining worklists and plans of all services. There were 21 other entries in the category.

Nick Eichler and his colleagues from Auckland Regional Public Health Service won the active project/development category for their TeleDOT, bringing TB treatment into the digital age initiative.

The telehealth system enables patients receiving TB treatment to record taking their medication on their smartphone with a nurse confirming dosage remotely. There were a total of 26 submissions in this category.

Both winners will receive $8,000 to continue developing their initiatives. The awards were presented last night during the Health Informatics New Zealand (HiNZ) conference in Auckland. The Clinicians Challenge is a joint initiative by the Ministry of Health and Health Informatics New Zealand.