Healthpoint’s API is powering a new COVID-19 vaccination mapping tool on www.karawhiua.nz to support Māori to find the nearest clinic in their rohe.

The API-driven tool was launched by Te Puni Kōkiri (Ministry for Māori Development) and Te Hiringa Hauora (Health Promotion Agency) on Friday 20 August 2021 on their Karawhiua website. This site was developed to unify whānau, hapū, iwi and Māori communities to stop the spread of COVID-19.

The initiative has proved popular. Since launching, 33,000 users have visited the website and in the last week the map has been viewed by 20,000 users. It has connected almost 7,000 people with trusted information about the nearest clinics in their rohe.

“Karawhiua is a great example of New Zealand having a better way of connecting vaccination sites with Māori by using Healthpoint’s API,” explains Healthpoint Partnerships and Culture Director Belinda Allen (Ngāpuhi).

Our partnership with Te Puni Kōkiri and Te Hiringa Hauora shows how health tech can support and increase health equity.”

The Healthpoint HL7® FHIR® API connects more New Zealanders to better healthcare by allowing applications, health organisations and health provider websites to easily access provider information on the NZ national health services directory, www.healthpoint.co.nz

Māori health agencies and iwi are working hard to reduce inequity in the vaccination roll out. As of Monday, 156,000 Māori have received a dose of the vaccine and 92,000 are fully vaccinated.  

“Healthpoint’s API has simply and easily allowed Māori health agencies to support more Māori to find the nearest clinic in their rohe,” says Allen.

The success of our partnership is about much more than the technology. Whakawhanaunga (the ability to form meaningful relationships and listen) has been a critical factor in creating such positive engagement.”

In August as the COVID-19 delta variant outbreak took hold in Aotearoa, traffic to the Healthpoint directory doubled to 1,178,000 visits, as people sought to find their nearest testing centre or vaccination clinic.

In a first for New Zealand, the mapping tool is also available through a sponsored data initiative run by the Ministry of Health. This enables anyone with a smartphone to access the site, even if they do not have any data on their mobile device.

Healthpoint was one of the first health technology organisations in Aotearoa to implement a standards-based API. Today, there are more than 80 organisations in the country using it to access the real-time information hosted on New Zealand’s national service directory.

About Healthpoint national health services directory

Healthpoint is New Zealand’s national health services directory. We enable equal access to detailed health service information. Our kaupapa is about connecting people, whānau and communities with health and social services, using technology to create greater transparency in the health sector.

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