The Influencers: Peter Townsend

A critical mission

Previously with the Canterbury Employers’ Chamber of Commerce, I viewed the key to our country’s future as being “the successful application of technology to leverage our Natural Capital on a platform of product and service integrity”.

In this context, Natural Capital is our resource base including our people, and integrity has connotations of environmental impact, sustainability and being able to transparently justify what we are doing.

Now, as Independent Chair of Te Papa Hauora the Health Precinct, I can see that sentence equally applies to the pursuit of good health outcomes. Applying technology to support those in health has never been more important.

In a health sector that is under enormous, unabating pressure, we have to keep getting smarter when utilising scarce and finite resources, including
our people.

Continuous improvement through innovation and new technologies is critical to improving health outcomes.

The irony is that a health system under strain understandably tends to retrench, and concentrate on basic needs. That can work against the pursuit of new ways of doing things, potentially stifling innovation.

Under pressure people can be simply too busy to think beyond the status quo and immediate needs. The problems of the day dominate.

At Te Papa Hauora we are determined to do whatever we can to encourage and support innovation, and the application of new technologies, through collaborative research, education and communication, to lock in a better future for all.

That is a critical mission.