New Zealand’s Ministry of Health approves MS cloud services

New Zealand’s Ministry of Health has officially approved the use of cloud services for advancing the country’s electronic health service capabilities.

Specifically, Microsoft’s core cloud services Azure, Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online have been deemed to meet the ministry’s requirements for storage of personal health information.

Barrie Sheers, Managing Director for Microsoft New Zealand, said the government’s decision to use Microsoft’s Trusted Public Cloud services will be transformative for the eHealth agenda in New Zealand.

“New Zealand’s health tech industry is today worth $1.3 billion to the local economy, and our country significantly punches above its weight on the international stage with health tech innovation,” he said.

“With leading exporters like Orion Health and more than a hundred other smaller independent software vendors, the health tech sector in New Zealand is one that continues to grow and provide a burgeoning opportunity for export to the fast growing global health market.”

With the advent of personalized medicine, genomics, intelligent sensors, advanced diagnostics and laboratory tests, data usage by health organizations will also increase as the sector builds ever more advanced models of the human body, according to Gabe Rijpma, senior director of health and social services Asia at Microsoft.

“Being able to process all this data, store it, analyze it and make intelligent predictions on the results will usher in a new era of healthcare that will radically transform the way care is both diagnosed and delivered,” he said.

Rijpma who is based at Microsoft NZ’s Christchurch office, said the local health tech sector has already been rapidly adopting the public cloud to develop futuristic solutions, but they have not been able to sell those solutions in international markets until now.

“Now the local health tech sector will be able to use New Zealand as a fertile ground for new innovation and also deliver their world firsts here, too,” he added.