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We’re creating a better health deal for people.

We have two reasons for being.

To deliver to the health system what’s next in smartest virtual health and smartest hands-on care.

To globally explore, feel and design what’s coming after what’s next. 

OUR
SERVICES

Whether it’s practice ownership, data or digital services

we have the people and the knowledge.

Digital health -
the enabler

Much of what comes next, and what comes after next, is going to leverage off the opportunities offered by technology and the digital space.

Ventures has a skilled team of people who get the digital space and is constantly exploring how better health outcomes, living well and tech can achieve a better marriage.

To do that the team needs to go everywhere and not be wedded to a single solution. The tool box has many solutions. We have specialists in the following areas.

  • Electronic health – PMS, patient portals, electronic clinical decision support, electronic pathways, shared electronic health records: working with and supporting providers using indici™, MedTech, Orion and many others – from true cloud to hybrid and all that lives in between.
  • Data services – data insights, AI powered exception reporting and electronic clinical decision support will all be part of how patients and providers make decisions around health. Using the latest public cloud services the team is pushing the boundaries in the use of data and leading New Zealand services to a new way of operating.

Practice ownership

Transforming and sustaining general practice and primary care services through a social enterprise.

How practices and services are owned and managed is changing from the traditional owner-operator model to community trusts and corporates.

Ventures has developed a social enterprise model creating partnerships between communities, patients and providers to create a new sustainable model of ownership. The collective scale means more options for patients and providers, creating regional and national capability with local delivery.

We currently own a number of practices across the North Island. We buy practices for a wide range of reasons and in a wide range of settings. Practice ownership also enables us to develop and prove operating models and new care models that address the current and future challenges of primary care. It is also proving an alternative for GPs wanting to exit but keen to transfer the practice to a clinician owned and governed organisation rather than a corporate body. In this way we retain the right balance between high quality care for patients, engaged providers and financial performance, which is really key and proven around the globe to be the real secret sauce.

Meet
the
team

Meet
the
team

Christine Hall

Chief executive

Christine came to New Zealand with her backpack to travel in 2006, and decided to stay because it has been the land of opportunity! Christine's background as an occupational therapist in mental health taught her a thing or two being strengths focused, seeing the potential in people and creative problem solving. She honed her leadership skills at Waikato DHB, then Wise Group, as chief executive of a social housing organisation. Christine's skills and passion for leadership, innovation, better health and social outcomes for people are a real asset to the team.

Will Hughes

Chief digital officer

Will brings (quite) a few years of experience in sales management and general management from across a variety of both 'for profit' and 'for purpose' organisations. Having spent the last decade or so developing commercial products and services for NFP health and disability organisations, Will is now passionate in spreading the good news about how Ventures innovative products are pushing hard to shape a better future in primary health care. The original beach boy, he is still surfing when the weather is warm.

Alex Poor

Chief data officer

Having managed big data sets across the health, education and social sectors, Alex has a real passion for using data for positive change. Having completed an M.Phil on primary care health systems interoperability, Alex can also blend technical detail with the big picture. Outside of work he leads a high-octane lifestyle centred around obscure board games and Linux.

Rebekah Doran

Medical director

Rebekah is the medical director for Ventures, including Primary Health Care Ltd (Pinnacle owned practices). She is involved with supervising and teaching of registrars and PGY2 doctors. She brings a variety of expertise from her many roles, including being a GP owner in Raglan for 10 years.

Brent Harvey

General manager - commercial

Brent leads the commercial and financial activity across Ventures, following a number of financial management and executive roles across the health sector. A Chartered Accountant with a heart for community, and a mind for numbers. Brent lives in Hamilton with his wife and two children, and when not playing Lego, listening to an obscure band that no one has heard of, or running along the river is likely to be found passionately following a game of cricket.

Dianne Mulhern

General manager, Primary Health Care Limited

Dianne started with Primary Health Care Limited early in 2020, beginning as a contractor to help deliver the consistent operating model for the practices and stepped into the general manager role in July. She has a bachelor’s degree in nursing and midwifery, diploma in quality, audit and risk, an international qualification in health and safety, and is a chartered director.

Dianne began her career as a health assistant and went on to train in the hospital system as an enrolled nurse before registering. She worked as a midwife at Birthcare Huntly where she took on the role of quality manager and health and safety manager for the Birthcare group. This lead into health auditing, working as a contract compliance auditor for a variety of providers to audit against the health and disability sector standards. During this time she also worked for HealthShare as a contract auditor.

Dianne owned and operated businesses in New Zealand and offshore independently, and with her husband. This saw her working with a diverse group of people from start up through to sale of businesses and giving her vast experience in strategic and financial planning, management and implementation of systems and processes to meet both internal and external standards.

After selling the family owned businesses Dianne worked as the chief executive for River Ridge East Birth Centre for four years. This role became part-time, and she was contracted to the role of acting chief executive for other health providers to restructure their businesses and improve their financial performance. She has also consulted for both ACC and Worksafe. Dianne was a member of the maternity quality safety programme at Waikato District Health Board and has been on Hetherington House board since 2017.

Bianca Montgomery

Project lead

Bianca came to us at Ventures with 20 years of being a pharmacist in New Zealand and in the United Kingdom under her belt. She has worked in both clinical pharmacy and pharmacy management roles and is now leading the project team for Ventures. When she is not busy trying to find a way to get things done better and quicker (which may involve chasing you with a stick) she can be found out on the country roads spinning on her bike, thumping out a couple of tunes on her piano or hanging with her super cool kid.

Here’s a taste of the ways we’re working to improve the health sector.

OUR
PROJECTS

Venturesgx
pharmacogenomics

Personalised medicine.

Too much of the health system is based around averages – from clinical trials through to service design. Ventures is focused on personalising healthcare and ensuring that consumers and clinicians have access to tools to ensure that the care offered and the medications used to treat and prevent illness are the best they can be for an individual.

Partnering with a specialist lab and a pharmacogenomic interpretation company, Ventures has brought DNA based PGx to New Zealand. But it doesn’t stop there. PGx results could become lost in the many passive pieces of information held within an individual’s health record, so Ventures is working with indici™ to ensure that your DNA based record lives securely within your health record and is an active tool when any medication is prescribed for you.

Find out more ›

Data informatics

A whole new world of health data.

We’re transforming how our health system accesses and uses data to design, plan and deliver better care.

We’re building a data lake using Amazon Web Services and providing expertise in data management, automation, analysis and insight for a wide range of health information across the Pinnacle group and beyond.

With solid experience in cloud technologies, we have the know-how to solve common data management problems and to quickly turn the data into information for action. We’re already providing cloud-based national data services to a range of external partners, and have demonstrable expertise in security, privacy, data governance and herding cats.

Patient journey
partnerships

Working in partnership with ACC to improve a patient journey to recovery.

The ACC high tech imaging programme (ACC HTI) provides general practitioners with training to assess particular injuries and the ability to order MRI diagnostics appropriately. This provides patients with appropriate early access to MRI diagnostics where previously they could only be obtained via a specialist referral. The aim of the programme is to decrease the existing long waits for specialist consultation by referring only patients that would have maximum benefit from specialist input, versus pain management or active rehabilitation services. The overall objective is to return patients back to maximum functionality sooner.

Ventures also works in partnership with Braemar Hospital, Hamilton Radiology, Lisa Hansen Physiotherapy and ACC to deliver an injury management service known as Waikato Escalated Care Ltd. The service follows on from the success of the ACC HTI implementation, and aims to provide patients with a team of interdisciplinary services to improve the journey back to rehabilitation. We will design and develop the technology enablers to support this service, which will use indici™ as the core patient management system to enhance virtual consultation, and a shared care plan tool to integrate the patient and whanau experience and care journey with all members of the health team.