New Zealand health system partners with NHS advisor on AI

New Zealand's national health system has brought in a London-based health innovation specialist to help assess and scale its artificial intelligence initiatives, including an expanding deployment of AI scribes in emergency departments.

Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand approached UCLPartners directly to support its HealthX innovation program. UCLPartners works closely with the United Kingdom's National Health Service and brings experience from one of the world's largest public health systems.

Why it matters

Public health systems worldwide face similar pressures around workforce shortages and growing demand. By tapping expertise from a comparable system, Te Whatu Ora can access evidence and lessons learned without reinventing solutions from scratch. The partnership model offers a pragmatic path for health organizations seeking to accelerate responsible AI adoption while managing risk.

What the partnership covers

The collaboration focuses on helping HealthX — Te Whatu Ora's national digital and AI innovation program — evaluate, test, and scale new technologies. Sonny Taite, director of Digital Innovation and AI at Te Whatu Ora, emphasized the arrangement provides "access to independent expertise, lessons learned and evidence" from a health system facing similar challenges.

Importantly, the partnership does not obligate Te Whatu Ora to purchase specific products or technologies. Taite described it as an "evidence and learning partnership" designed to support informed decision-making grounded in clinical leadership and governance.

UCLPartners' horizon scanning work has already given Te Whatu Ora "additional confidence" as it rolls out AI scribes across emergency departments, according to the organization.

AI scribe deployment expands

Launched in September as Te Whatu Ora's flagship innovation initiative, HealthX began with a nationwide implementation of AI scribes in public emergency departments starting in October. The technology now serves approximately 1,250 emergency doctors and frontline workers after expanding into emergency mental health services earlier this year.

HealthX evaluates potential projects against three minimum criteria: improving performance against health targets, scalability across multiple sites and regions, and addressing priorities including workforce pressures, inequitable access, and clinical inefficiencies.

The program is exploring additional applications in cardiology, radiology, dermatology, virtual care models, mental health AI applications, diagnostics, and data interoperability.

Learning from comparable systems

Chris Laing, chief executive of UCLPartners, noted that the organizations share healthcare challenges and health inequalities across their populations, making collaboration valuable.

"Healthcare systems around the world are grappling with workforce pressures, growing demand and how best to use digital and AI technologies safely and effectively," Taite said. "We don't need to solve every challenge on our own."

Te Whatu Ora emphasized that all HealthX trials and technology rollouts will continue following its established clinical governance, safety, and equity frameworks.

These details were first reported by Healthcare IT News.