Committee members

Alastair is Chief Standards Advisor for data and digital at the Ministry of Health and chair of the HISO committee. He works actively with health providers and their industry partners to ensure standards contribute to an equitable, data-driven and digitally-enabled health and disability system that delivers pae ora, or healthy futures, for New Zealanders. ​

Alastair represents New Zealand on the SNOMED International General Assembly and he chaired the SNOMED International Member Forum during 2019-21. He leads our involvement in the interoperability workstream of the Global Digital Health Partnership and is convenor of the ISO/TC 215 Health informatics national mirror committee for New Zealand.

Zeeman van der Merwe, Information Consultant with ACC, has actively promoted a collaborative approach across government and the private sector as a member of HISO and advocate for information standards. Zeeman chaired the committee 2013-18 and remains the vice-chair. At ACC, he liaises with various internal and external organisations on information strategy and the sharing of information to support the business and enable decision making.

Being a member of several other governance, standards and ethics groups provides Zeeman a platform for promoting cooperation and innovation in digital health. Qualifications and experience in economics, strategic marketing, information management and business intelligence in various sectors enables a broad perspective and many varied points of view that assist in understanding and evaluating potential solutions and finding consensus.

Jody Janssen is lead business analyst at East Health Trust PHO in Auckland. East Health supports GP clinics in the East Auckland and Franklin areas and has an enrolled population of approx. 113,500.

Jody was instrumental in bringing together data from disparate patient management systems into one central data warehouse. This data repository has now been in place for many years and has stood up to several migrations to different vendor platforms, integration with the National Enrolment Service (NES) and related capitation files, national cervical screening programme data extracts, and other patient data. A secure browser connection allows GP clinics access to comprehensive data analytics and KPI reporting.

Her next undertaking is to prepare a ‘roadmap to the cloud’ to create flexible and efficient processing and storage alternatives. Patient safety and equity in health outcomes through analytics, data quality, privacy and security are the main drivers for innovation and improvements.

With a Bachelor Business Studies (Economics) and a postgraduate certificate in Analytics, in addition to several years of experience working with health data, Jody feels she can make an important contribution to HISO. She is a member of the Metro Auckland Data Custodianship Group, the PHO CIO Forum and HL7 New Zealand.

John Carter is Chief Technology Officer at Clanwilliam Health. He brings more than 25 years of health information technology leadership to his role overseeing the software development and information technology departments.

Before moving to New Zealand and joining HealthLink in 2017, he was Vice President at Apelon, Inc., a US-based professional services firm specialising in the implementation of data standards and controlled healthcare vocabularies. While at Apelon, John worked on projects for government agencies in the US, Canada, Australia, France and the Philippines, as well as numerous US and international NGO and commercial clients. John is on the board of HL7 New Zealand, co-chairs the HL7NZ FHIR implementation working group and is an active participant in standards development activities.

He holds an MBA, Finance from Webster University (St. Louis, USA) and was a US National Library of Medicine fellow in medical informatics at the University of Utah.

Materoa is currently the Upoko Whakarae for Te Tihi o Ruahine Whānau Ora Alliance. She has been involved in mental health, Māori health and Whānau Ora in various roles.

Innovation and digital solutions are an integral part of our future: Materoa is a champion for change and challenges. She is the Board Chair of Emerge Aotearoa Trust Board, Interim Chair for E Tipu Rea (Science Challenge) and member of MidCentral DHB, among other board and governance roles. She has been involved over time with indigenous development and has benefited from visiting with and maintaining a broad range of relationships internationally.

Materoa is passionate and committed to Māori development and is inspired by the numerous examples of talent and pukenga seen in our whānau, hapu and iwi.

I have worked in primary care for 15 years, the past ten being in Taupo, New Zealand. My interest in developing an efficient and safe means of improving patient care via IT ventures has been longstanding. In addition, I recognize the value of governance within this area.

I have had direct experience with onboarding the EPIC patient management system at our family medicine practice while I worked in Midland, Michigan, US. I have an ability to problem solve using an ‘outside the box’ approach, which I have employed through my current roles within primary care.

I am currently our local regional High Tech Imaging (HTI) GP trainer. I continue to be an auditor for this programme. This programme improves patient access to MRI services under ACC.

I am also the regional (Lakes) GP liaison for the Pinnacle group. In this role, I provide regional insight and input into the issues facing our GP network and coordinate feedback to GPs. I am currently giving input to a combined IT/clinical governance team, looking at generating an outcome framework for our locality extended care team.

In addition, I am involved in local clinical governance via the Taupo/Turangi Clinical Advisory Committee.

I think that there exists a great opportunity for health IT to be used in a way that empowers clinicians and patients, supports enhanced access to care and allows for a wider interface focused on improving patient outcomes via better clinician communication.

Nader is a British medical graduate and a practicing GP of more than 16 years, attaining membership of the Royal College of GPs (UK) in 2005. After gaining his Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery degree at the University of Dundee, Nader worked as a GP in Scotland, in diverse urban and rural settings. He took the opportunity to experience New Zealand in 2003, working in Palmerston North Hospital for a year. His love of Aotearoa, its land, people and culture inevitably drew him to settling permanently with his wife in 2010.

As well as clinical practice as a GP, Nader is committed to advancing high quality delivery of care to consumers, Chairing the THINK Hauora Clinical & Digital Governance Committee. His role as Principal Medical Advisor leverages his extensive Primary Care experience to provide leadership across many PHO clinical and business services.

Nader is a Trustee of THINK Hauora’s (formerly Central PHO) Board, member of the THINK Hauora Senior Leadership Team, MidCentral DHB’s Clinical and Pharmacy Boards, Clinical Council and Digital & Data Information Governance Group.

His membership of local, regional and national boards has allowed Nader to cultivate a rich skillset in clinical, IT and business governance. Nader has a lifelong interest in technology that drives his pursuit of ICT to enhance people’s health and empower their lives.

I am Pou Herenga at Te Tihi o Ruahine Whānau Ora Alliance.

I am a Taranaki girl, hailing from both the west coast of Taranaki (Rahotu) and further around past New Plymouth in the mighty town of Waitara. I moved to Palmerston North after finishing my school years in Nelson to pursue study. After many years and three beautiful tamariki (who are now 17, 15 and 14), I managed to complete a Bachelor of Social Work. I was a practising social worker for many years before moving into social work education. I spent four years with Te Wānanga o Aotearoa and Te Wānanga o Raukawa, supporting tauira through their study and working with community and statutory social work organisations with practice-based learning. It was during this time I completed a Masters in Indigenous Studies through the University of Otago.

I am passionate about working for my people and advancing whānau ora, as well as a champion for digital initiatives and using data and standards to advance equity for Māori in our health and disability system.

Stanil is the Team Leader Standards Development at Standards New Zealand. Stanil and his team are responsible for primary relationships with new and existing commissioners for the development of standards, national standards bodies, and relationships with committee members. The team is focused on delivering standards and other documents that are of high quality, on time, on budget, and ultimately satisfy the needs of customers, consumers, and sponsors.

Prior to his role at SNZ, Stanil was a Senior Advisor at the Licensed Building Practitioners scheme within MBIE where he guided a nationwide network of building and construction assessors and played a leading role in development and implementation of regulatory policy, including the LBP Skills Maintenance Scheme. Stanil is a PRINCE 2 Practitioner and Certified Microsoft Office Professional.

Soledad is a project specialist at Canterbury DHB. Soledad is known for providing health insights across Canterbury health system where, over the last ten years, she has driven the use of data to inform opportunities for improvement. She is a project manager who thrives on complex challenges. She led the conceptual design, customisation and implementation of a statistical process control tool for Canterbury and enabled more than 40 Northern region providers to implement the Mental Health and Addiction National Collection. She has a Postgraduate Diploma in Public Health (University of Otago) and a Business Management degree.

What drives Sole is her eagerness to make a difference effectively and efficiently across our communities. Sole juggles her spare time with teenager son, surfing Scarborough long waves, mountain biking around Banks Peninsula.