Health Forum New Zealand

It is now clear that COVID-19 has reached New Zealand. Communication between health providers, across specialties and around the country will be critical to optimising our response.

There has not previously been a mechanism by which this can be done in a secure, accessible, and searchable way.

The Health Forum NZ is a multi-profession, cross organisational communication platform (e.g., peer-to-peer) built on software called Discourse to combat COVID-19 is now live. It has been developed rapidly by a small team of volunteer clinical informaticians. Intensive care will go live imminently. It is endorsed by the Clinical Informatics Leadership Network and the MoH is aware of it and supportive in principle. It is volunteer and funded from volunteers’ own pockets.

The Forum utilises a powerful open source discussion platform (Discourse) securely hosted in New Zealand. This will enable efficient long form communication between groups in a completely secure and searchable way. It is distinct from other peer-to-peer communications such as Facebook, because this is secure, NZ governed, and has greater functionality to enable cross-sector communication while also facilitating messaging between individual professionals. The intended use for this Forum is for health providers to have a place to discuss all matters related to the Covid-19 pandemic: clinical, logistically, IT, and peer support.

Health Forum NZ will be open to those working in New Zealand healthcare across a wide range of disciplines, but it will only work if we all take part.

Thank you for encouraging your members to join Health Forum NZ.