Day by Day

To complete our surveys follow these links:
Consumer and whanau
Provider survey (if you’re a general practice doctor or nurse)

Every research project needs a ‘Principal Investigator’ (aka leader) to make sure it succeeds. Our telehealth research team has two leaders, Drs Karen Day and Inga Hunter. We have a lot in common, as you would expect of people working in a project team. Inga came to New Zealand in 1987 for the first Rugby World Cup and I brought my family here in 1999 to start the new millennium in a new country.

I came from South Africa where I trained as a nurse and midwife, and Inga came from Ireland where she trained as a doctor. Unlike me, until 2019 Inga split her workday between being a medical doctor at Palmerston North Hospital and an academic at Massey University. I have a long history of jobs that ranged from moving through general to senior nursing roles and then on to management roles in various organisations. When I came to New Zealand, I worked for a medical software company and then as a change manager for a large District Health Board that was implementing a set of wide-ranging IT projects. In 2005 I became a fulltime academic.

Inga and I have worked together on a number of committees, but I won’t bore you with the details of all the committees we’ve served on (unless you ask about them or you’ve worked with us on a committee and want to share anecdotes). For example we’ve both served on the HiNZ Board, and advisory groups regarding health information systems such as Inga’s work with the NZ Telehealth Leadership Group. We were both part of the establishment of the Clinical Informatics Leadership Group, in various ways and continue to contribute to this group.

In different roles and on different projects we’ve worked with the Ministry of Health, either on a strategic level or with research projects to inform policy. We are often approached by people from health services, the Ministry of Health, international and local researchers, and others for health informatics insights and advice.

We are both passionate about revealing the experiences of health technology users and consumers of healthcare services. In slightly different ways.

Inga has focused on privacy and confidentiality, the influence of electronic health records on clinical processes and policies, the safe sharing of information in a healthcare setting, among other topics. I am fascinated by the effect of information technologies on how people with long term health issues access and use health services, how they use the internet and associated technologies to handle their health issues, and how this use impacts on their sense of control over their health and outcomes. Consequently, I have done a lot of research on telehealth (from multiple viewpoints – organisational, clinical, and consumer and whanau). 

Because we have a lot in common, and we’ve worked together on many projects over a long time, we work really well together as a leadership team.

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