In this episode of Talking HealthTech, Peter Birch speaks with Dr Kieran Holland from Streamliners, Ron Tenenbaum from The Clinician, Dr Stephen Pool from Core Schedule, and Niru Rajakumar from McCrae Tech about the role of people-centred innovation in healthcare.

The discussion explores how New Zealand companies are redesigning clinical workflows, supporting patient engagement, and implementing technology solutions that bridge policy and practice, empower both clinicians and patients, and support sustainable system transformation.

This episode is part 2 of a miniseries produced in collaboration with New Zealand Trade & Enterprise (NZTE), focusing on exporting New Zealand’s health technology to global markets.

Key Takeaways

🧑‍🤝‍👩 People are Central to Health Innovation: Across each conversation, a core theme is putting people—clinicians, patients, and users—at the centre of digital health solutions. Listening to real-world needs and collaborating with frontline staff is critical to building trust in new technologies.

🔬 HealthPathways Bridges Policy and Practice: HealthPathways, supported by Streamliners, offers evidence-based clinical guidance blended with local system navigation, reducing variation in care and enhancing collaboration. Its model showcases the benefits of cross-jurisdictional learning and the opportunities for more national collaboration, including in places like Australia.

🩺 PROMs and PREMs Shape Value-Based Care: Ron Tenenbaum explains how Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) and Patient Reported Experience Measures (PREMs) are increasingly fundamental in value-based healthcare. The challenge is not only technological, but also cultural—integrating the patient voice requires clinician buy-in and workflow adaptation.

💼 Workforce Management and Fatigue Risk: Dr Stephen Pool outlines the real-world consequences of manual, disconnected rostering—such as clinician fatigue and increased risk to patient safety. Core Schedule demonstrates how digitised, clinician-driven rostering can reduce administrative burden and improve wellbeing and compliance.

🏥 Hospital Modernisation Relies on Flexible, Modular Tech: Niru Rajakumar highlights the growing complexity and workforce shortages in hospitals, pointing to the need for modular, flexible hospital information systems. Starting with small changes and scaling smartly, rather than implementing one-size-fits-all solutions, can deliver value efficiently.

🤖 AI’s Role is Foundational, Not a Quick Fix: Each guest emphasises that emerging tools like AI should be built on solid foundations of system integration and must address frontline realities, rather than being seen as a “silver bullet.”

Check out the episode and full show notes on the Talking HealthTech website.

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