Nelson Marlborough District Health Board (NMDHB) is gearing up to go live with the Health Connect South clinical information portal next month in what is a major milestone for the South Island, with all five southern region DHBs connecting to the same shared electronic medical record for secondary care.

And when the primary care portal HealthOne is rolled out in Nelson Marlborough by the middle of the year, the South Island will have what is in effect a shared electronic health record for its entire population, in what could prove a model for the New Zealand government's plans for a single, national EHR.