The future of health: Te Papa Hauora Health Precinct Chair Peter Townsend

Recently Te Papa Hauora, the Health Precinct, supported the University of Canterbury Centre for Entrepreneurship (UCE) in the delivery of its annual ‘Future of Health’ Disrupt Challenge.

The Challenge involved over 50 students, both undergraduate and postgraduate, from a range of local tertiary institutions volunteering to spend an intense weekend exploring solutions to some of the big problems facing the health sector. They were invited to be part of ‘imagining a better health system for Ōtautahi’. Working in small multi-disciplinary teams, most of the participants chose to address issues around developing better ways of promoting health and wellbeing in the community, with the goal of reducing long-term pressures on the health system.

There were many good ideas generated from this group of enthusiastic, future health influencers. The participants were obviously very aware of the importance of local community driven solutions, better supporting vulnerable communities, and addressing inequities.

This type of collaborate initiative is an important part of building local capability, leadership and solutions to complex problems. Hopefully some of the propositions developed can be refined and further developed, to make a positive difference to health and wellbeing outcomes in our region. Te Papa Hauora is proud to be a part of making that difference.