The announcement by Health Minister Jonathan Coleman at the HiNZ conference in Christchurch that New Zealand would build and roll out the basics of a national electronic health record (EHR) by 2018 was big news on both sides of the Tasman in October, and helped to round off a year in which NZ continued on its steady, sensible path towards a health system supported by sound, functioning health IT initiatives.

The general consensus of opinion from Pulse+IT's informal survey at HiNZ of reaction to the announcement was that if there was one country that was at the right level of maturity and would do the job with the minimum of fuss, it was New Zealand. Unlike certain other countries that shall remain nameless, there were no large sums of money thrown around and no exaggerated promises of what could be achieved.