The three district health boards in Auckland and the Northland district health board are merging into one organisation, to be known as healthAlliance New Zealand Ltd. The merger covers healthAlliance, the shared services organisation for the Waitemata and Counties Manukau District Health Boards; the Auckland District Health Board; and the Northland District Health Board. The three entities all have CIOs. It is not yet known whether a CIO will be appointed for the new organisation, or what the reporting lines will be for the information services teams.
The shared services operation is the latest large scale public sector merger following the creation of the Auckland Supercity.
Barry Vryenhoek has been appointed as the new chief executive of the organisation and will start his role on March 14.
Vryenhoek has held several corporate services and operations leadership roles with the NZ Defence, where he is currently general manager of corporate support and chief financial officer (Army).
According to the latest MIS100 report on the top IT using organisations in New Zealand, the screen numbers are 7894 for healthAlliance; 6410 for the Auckland District Health Board; and 2942 for the Northland District Health Board. The figures include all desktops, laptops, servers, terminals, thin clients and smart phones that are centrally supported. When planning began for the merger, the new entity was initially referred to as the Northern Region Shared Services Organisation.