Whakarongorau Aotearoa (Fresh Zealand telehealth services) will be migrated to a up-to-date cloud host by the end of the year.
The government service will be the anchor tenant of IT giant Microsoft’s upcoming hyperscale cloud in Fresh Zealand, it has been announced.
Since 2015, Whakarongorau has been providing free, government-funded and 24/7 national telehealth services via seven digital channels. It offers over 30 telehealth services, including support for COVID-19, mental health and domestic violence, along with 12 clinical teams.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
According to the press release, the organization will integrate its core telehealth system provided by Valentia Technologies into a single platform in Microsoft’s zero-trust cloud region.
The move comes a year after Whakarongoau completed a contact center platform replacement project aimed at modernizing its telehealth operations.
Aligning with its digital strategy, the move to the Microsoft Azure region will enable Whakarongoau to focus on its next phase of modernization: Adopting advanced analytics and artificial intelligence tools that enhance operational efficiency and aid deliver services at scale. These include tools for real-time call transcription and customer sentiment analysis.
“This agreement with Microsoft will enable us to deliver secure, seamless services across digital and AI platforms, ensuring the needs of New Zealanders are met wherever they are,” Whakarongoau CIO Mike Mulvaney said in a statement.
GREATER CONTEXT
Microsoft first announced in 2020 its plan to establish a regional cloud data center in Fresh Zealand. Its first local partner, IT and hybrid cloud services provider CLC from the Spark Business Group, was revealed in June this year.
Ahead of the official launch of the hyperscale data space, Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC), which provides national personal injury insurance, became the first organization in Fresh Zealand’s healthcare system to sign a three-year cloud agreement with Microsoft in 2021. even earlier, during the height of the pandemic in 2020, the company was already supporting healthcare organizations in the country in their adaptation and recovery with Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, a suite of cloud-based applications and tools for healthcare.
Microsoft is half of the contractor of the Te Whatu Ora national hybrid cloud project, which aims to migrate ICT systems to the cloud. Migration to the cloud is one of the key initiatives of the government after the decision of… limit ICT implementations and choose “smaller, more robust” platforms. It discovered a patchwork of over 4,000 old-fashioned clinical and business applications that had become costly to maintain.
In addition to signing a government-wide service contract with Microsoft in 2021, the Ministry of Health has also concluded a separate agreement with the IT giant, which is intended to aid enhance the cybersecurity potential of the healthcare system.