Team Name

AC2

Team Members

Project Description

Project Overview

Our project reuses and integrates two key data sources:
✅ ACC Injury Data – claim counts and active claim costs over time 🤕
✅ Environmental Data – pollen concentration and air quality heatmaps 💨🍃

By combining these datasets, we identified hidden relationships between environmental triggers and workplace injuries.

For example, in 2016, poor air quality coincided with a spike in ACC claims in agriculture, with similar patterns observed in construction and other industries👷🏻‍♀️📈

This finding demonstrates how siloed data, when connected, can reveal unseen costs of absenteeism, injury claims, and lost productivity. It also shows the untapped potential of interoperability to deliver real-time insights that support healthier workers, stronger businesses, and smarter public policy in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Data Story

Addressing Productivity Gaps Through Health Data Interoperability

New Zealand has made significant investments in health data and technology. Yet, despite this, a substantial productivity gap persists across the workforce. The core issue is a lack of interoperability: healthcare records, workplace injury data, workforce records, and environmental data exist in disconnected silos.

Because these systems cannot “talk” to each other, crucial connections remain hidden — such as the link between high pollen seasons and spikes in workplace injuries. Without these insights, productivity losses go unseen, unmeasured, and unaddressed.

Our hypothesis is simple: injury rates in New Zealand rise during high pollen seasons, leading to more sick days, absenteeism, and higher costs for businesses. Proving this not only validates the productivity benefits of interoperability but also provides a compelling business case for further investment.

The Solution: A Secure Interoperable Hub

We propose building a secure, interoperable data hub that connects four critical datasets into a unified view:

• Healthcare Records – anonymized GP visits and hospital data
  
• Workplace Injury Data – ACC claims, WorkSafe, and workplace incident reports
  
• Workforce Data – HR data on absenteeism, sick leave, and roles
  
• Environmental Data – pollen counts, air quality, weather, humidity, and wind
  

Metrics for Measuring Impact

To validate our hypothesis, we focus on five measurable outcomes:

• Relative Risk of Injury during high vs. low pollen seasons
  
• Average Sick Days per employee during environmental stress periods
  
• Costs to Business from absenteeism and productivity loss
  
• Cost of Claims for businesses linked to environmental triggers
  
• Severity of Injury during high pollen vs. low pollen seasons
  

Purpose and Impact

Our interoperable secure hub delivers value on multiple levels:

• Businesses gain a financial case for wellness investments, moving beyond abstract wellbeing to measurable ROI.
  
• Targeted Interventions become possible, such as air purifiers, flexible work, or shift adjustments during peak pollen seasons.
  
• Real-time Alerts provide proactive insights, enabling preventative action before injuries occur.
  
• Public Health & Policy benefit from a scalable test case for how interoperability can transform both population health and workforce productivity.
  

Future Implementation

Next steps include:

• Refining the data models
  
• Adding a regional field for location-specific analysis
  
• Piloting sector-specific dashboards (e.g., agriculture, construction)
  

Over time, the hub could expand to include additional health and social datasets, strengthening its role as a foundation for evidence-based productivity policy in New Zealand.