Project Description
🚀 Unlocking Productivity Through Connected Health Data
Jurisdiction: Aotearoa New Zealand
Tag: #Health‑interoperability
🌍 Background
New Zealand is investing billions in connecting healthcare systems and data to enable interoperability — allowing separate systems to “talk” to each other and share information seamlessly.
Better health leads to better economic outcomes, but there’s a critical gap between these investments and measurable productivity gains.
🛠️ Our Solution
We’ve developed a transparent, evidence‑backed benefits model that links health system improvements directly to workforce and economic outcomes.
It integrates:
- Regional health utilisation and cost data
- Workforce absenteeism and productivity metrics
- Scenario‑based ROI and equity‑adjusted modelling
🎯 What It Delivers
- For individuals: Quantified gains from reduced sick days and improved preventive care
- For businesses: Measurable savings from lower absenteeism and healthier staff
- For government: Clear fiscal returns from targeted interoperability initiatives
🔍 Core Mechanisms
- Map interoperability investments to specific health outcomes (e.g., reduced ED visits, faster care coordination)
- Translate those outcomes into economic terms using GDP per hour worked and sector‑specific productivity factors
- Model multiple scenarios to identify the highest‑return initiatives and equity impacts
đź“Ź Evaluation Framework
- KPIs: Sick days saved, workforce participation gains, GDP uplift, ROI (raw and equity‑adjusted)
- Tracking: Region‑level dashboards with drill‑downs for policymakers, health providers, and business leaders
🌟 Impact
A decision‑support framework that turns complex, siloed health data into actionable investment strategies — ensuring interoperability delivers measurable, equitable productivity growth for Aotearoa.
Data Story
Turning Interoperability into Measurable Productivity Gains
We started with a challenge: billions are being invested in connecting New Zealand’s healthcare systems, but the productivity benefits are hard to prove. To close that gap, we built a financial model that traces the path from health system improvements to economic outcomes — step by step.
1. Data Assembly & Alignment
We brought together datasets that had never been linked before:
- Regional health utilisation and service cost data
- Workforce absenteeism and participation rates
- GDP per hour worked by region and sector
- Investment costs for interoperability initiatives
Every dataset was cleaned, standardised, and aligned to a common regional and time‑series structure, ensuring every figure could be traced to a credible source.
2. Mapping Health Outcomes to Economic Impact
For each interoperability improvement — such as reduced emergency department visits, faster care coordination, or better preventive care — we quantified the change in health outcomes. These were then converted into workforce productivity gains using evidence‑based multipliers (e.g., sick days avoided × GDP per hour worked).
3. Scenario & Equity Modelling
We built scenario toggles (Low, Medium, High impact) so decision‑makers can explore different investment assumptions. An equity‑weighting option adjusts ROI to reflect benefits for underserved regions, making trade‑offs between fiscal efficiency and social impact visible.
4. Outputs & Insights
- ROI (raw and equity‑adjusted) by region and initiative
- Net savings to government, businesses, and individuals
- GDP uplift over time
5. The Narrative It Reveals
- For individuals: Better health means fewer sick days and more time living well.
- For businesses: Healthier staff means higher productivity and lower costs.
- For government: Targeted investments deliver measurable GDP uplift and reduced healthcare expenditure.
By embedding the logic inside a transparent, auditable model, we’ve created more than a set of numbers — we’ve built a decision‑support framework that shows exactly how interoperability investments translate into real‑world productivity gains.
