5 April 2023
Al Johnson
[FYI request #22006 email]
Tēnā koe Al
Your request for Official information, reference: HNZ00012907
Thank you for your email on 7 March 2023 asking for the following which has been
considered under the Of icial Information Act 1982 (the Act). You have specifically
requested:
“I’m interested in what was developed for Covid that is being currently or planed to be
reused in areas other than solely Covid. This includes:
•
the HIRA business case (released as part of an OIA on the Ministry's website)
lists some items developed and learnings from Covid 19 that HIRA wil make use
of.
•
Question: Can I be supplied with what HRIA is using, learning from or repurposing items
that was initially developed for Covid-19 use?
•
items that are now expanding their existing scope or complete re-use or re-
development in other areas (with the Covid systems as the starting point or
inspiration) and how those decisions were made (the frameworks and business
cases if applicable).
•
These are some examples I’ve seen listed - which I'd like documents or discussions on
about their existing or planned usage post Covid:
•
Covid Population Identification & Register
•
Covid-19 Immunisation Register
•
Covid 19 Vaccine Booking And Scheduling System,
•
the Covid CARM
•
the Covid Tracer App
•
the National Contract Tracing Solution
•
and what was used to deliver borders management (within the Ministry of Health)
and Care in the Community.”
Your request for documents or discussions about the systems you have listed is refused
under section 18(f) of the Official Information Act, which provides that a request may be
refused if the information requested cannot be made available without substantial collation or
research. However, we have provided a summary of work underway which might be of use
to you.
The COVID-19 data and digital investment consists of testing, border, contact tracing,
immunisation and Care in the Community. These five COVID-19 domains are supported by
cross-domain products and services. These products and services continue to enable the
response to COVID-19, and we are investing to extend to other diseases and equitable
health outcomes.
A number of actions have been taken to date:
• Standardised measles management plans and practices agreed with the National
Public Health Service. The agreed measles plans were implemented within National
Contact Tracing Solution in September in preparation for an outbreak. This has not
been required to date but is ready if a measles outbreak occurs.
• Breast screening has successfully utilised the Consumer Population & Identification
Register (SMS and email campaign tool built for COVID-19) to engage with late
screening participants initially, as a pilot in Counties Manukau. As a result, is in the
process of being rolled out nationally.
• Over the summer break and as a result of international events, the Enhanced Border
Surveil ance measure was announced on 6 January. The testing-on-arrival
functionality that was previously used for the Reconnecting NZ programme was
reactivated to survey a sampled set of direct arrivals from China.
• The previously configured measles module for the NCTS was required for the first
time on Friday 3 February when a flight from Melbourne was of concern. It was then
required for a second time on 13 February for a confirmed case that arrived from
India.
• Book my vaccine (BMV) has also been extended, the public is now able to locate and
book not only a COVID-19 booster but also an influenza vaccination or a combo of
COVID-19 booster and a Flu vaccination. This is in support of the Flu2023 campaign.
In addition, a number of further actions are planned:
• COVID Consumer Population & Identification Register (CPIR) extended to other
public health programmes (eg cervical screening)
• Continued extension of NCTS to other communicable and notifiable diseases (using
configurable disease management patterns).
• Rheumatic fever solution implemented re-using COVID-19 tech platforms
• Development of the Aotearoa Immunisation Register (AIR) heavily inspired by the
learnings from the interim COVID-19 Immunisation Register (CIR). This having
enabled the shutdown of the legacy ImmuniseNow solution (mid Mar 23) which was
used by vaccinating pharmacies, it is replaced by a new AIR Vaccinator Portal. The
wider AIR solution wil ultimately replace the legacy NIR and supersede the CIR.
• Re-use of My Covid Record solution to create a public health consumer web app so
that parents can view their immunisation history for their under 12 tamariki. This also
builds on the learnings from COVID on the delivery of APIs to improve integration
opportunities. In this case it is re-use of the same vaccination history API that
supports the AIR vaccinator portal.
• Re-use of the COVID Immunisation Contact Support system (CICS) to begin to
extend contact centre and outreach support to other public health initiatives.
A number of technology products have been or wil be decommissioned. These are products
that that supported the COVID Protection Framework and associated Health Orders, and are
no longer required:
• Border Workforce Testing Register that supported Required Testing Order and
Vaccination mandates
• National Border Solution that managed Border Arrival Testing requirements
• QR Code scanning poster generation
My Vaccine Pass has also been decommissioned, however the International Travel
Certificate and My Vaccination Record remain available to the public.
The relationship between the Hira Programme and Covid-related systems is somewhat more
complicated. The Hira Programme pre-dates Covid and certain aspects of that programme
were co-opted for Covid response use, not the other way around. For example, My Health
Account was originally conceived as the identification account for the Hira architecture and is
now being extended to provide summary of immunisations.
Over time, My Health Account wil become the secure digital identity service through which
whanau and consumers can access health records held across the health system. In
addition, the integration platforms developed and utilised through the COVID response are
being aligned to Hira strategies and being extended to support new integration requirements.
The initial Aotearoa Immunisation Register vaccination history API being one of the APIs
delivered in a Hira aligned manner.
How to get in touch
If you have any questions, you can contact us at
[email address].
If you are not happy with this response, you have the right to make a complaint to the
Ombudsman. Information about how to do this is available at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or by phoning 0800 802 602.
As this information may be of interest to other members of the public, Te Whatu Ora may
proactively release a copy of this response on our website. Al requester data, including your
name and contact details, wil be removed prior to release. The released response wil be
made available on our website.
Nāku iti noa, nā
Michael Dreyer
Group Manager and Chief Technology Officer
National Digital Services
Office of the Chief Data and Digital
