Scott Arrol (New Zealand Health Information and Technology)
Digital health body NZ Health IT (NZHIT) has launched a national digital health jobs board to help organisations and people looking for work during the Covid-19 lockdown.
The move is to support member organisations and people looking for work during the pandemic, NZHIT chief executive Scott Arrol said.
“We just want to support people and organisations at a time of unprecedented global crisis during the lockdown," Arrol said.
"The jobs board is starting as a fresh canvass waiting to be filled with jobs available and candidates looking for roles."
NZHIT members include digital health companies and organisations, healthcare providers, consultancies, legal, insurance, banking, government, regional agencies and international companies with an interest in New Zealand's health sector.
The jobs board was designed to provide a simple way for employers to display their digital health vacancies and candidates to have their availability posted.
“Both can then quickly scan and connect directly with each other, should there be a potential match," Arrol said.
“For employers it's a simple matter of providing brief vacancy information and a link to their own job advert.
“Similarly, candidates are able to provide the type of role they're looking for and a link to their own LinkedIn profile.”
Arrol said the new facility has been made available to support, not replace, existing employment efforts.
Earlier this month, NZHIT's two special interest groups the Virtual Health Industry Group (VHIG) and the Digital Enablers Industry Group (DEHIG) focused on Covid-19 as part of their monthly meetings.
The need for sound, stable and ready-to-use solutions to enable the rapid switch to virtual health consultations, particularly in the primary care sector, formed a large part of the discussions at the VHIG's meeting on 1 April.
On the same day, DEHIG discussed cybersecurity and privacy concerns along with the increased strain being put on core IT infrastructure across the health sector as a result of the rapid deployment of remote working, NZHIT reported.
Issues included bandwidth capacities and the strain being put on popularly used video-conferencing systems.
There were also updates from the Ministry of Health and Telehealth Leadership Group.
Both groups highlighted the need for greater levels of transparency, engagement and governance to ensure decisions made "under fire" were able to be sustained past the period of immediate crisis or unwound if no longer needed.
