NZ Health Innovation Hub Appoints Rowhan Kelly

30 August 2012

NZ Health Innovation Hub Appoints Rowhan Kelly as Operations Manager

The New Zealand Health Innovation Hub has appointed Rowhan Kelly as operations manager.

The Health Innovation Hub has been created to strengthen partnerships between the healthcare sector, industry and research organisations to help develop and commercialise new health technologies and service innovations. As operations manager Rowhan has a key role in establishing this new organisation.

“We aim to make it easier for people with ideas that will make a real difference to the cost and quality of healthcare to realise the full potential of those ideas. The Hub is developing streamlined systems to fast-track the development of ideas with commercial potential,” Rowhan Kelly said.

Rowhan has over 10 years’ experience in the health industry and studied business administration while working in Christchurch sports medicine clinics. She then went on to manage operational requirements at PhysioSouth Ltd, establishing green-field clinics and services to grow the business.

She’s come to the hub from Atlantis Healthcare in Auckland where she was business services manager. Atlantis is a global company involved with designing and implementing medication adherence programmes. Throughout her time at Atlantis, Rowhan was responsible for the management and operational services of the business, overseeing three busy departments with responsibility for a large number of staff and client portfolios.

As operations manager of the New Zealand Health Innovation Hub, Rowhan is discovering there’s a wealth of talented people with innovative ideas on how we can work together to improve people’s health.

“I’ve been blown away by the breadth and depth of the innovation already going on in the sector,” Rowhan said. “Kiwis have a reputation as innovators and ‘back-shed’ tinkerers and our health professionals are in a unique situation to observe and think about the way they currently work, and how it could be improved if they had a different product/system or a new way of doing things,” she said.

The Health Innovation Hub is very keen to hear from people who have innovative ideas that will improve people’s health – particularly ideas that come up with a solution to a global, not just a NZ, problem.

“The Hub will provide an easy and open route for businesses to work together. We will bring people together who work in health, industry and funders. Over time we would like to support more opportunities for NZ ideas and innovations to take to the global market,” Rowhan Kelly said.

Dr Murray Horn, chair of the National Health Board and the New Zealand Health Innovation Hub, said he was delighted with Rowhan Kelly’s appointment. “She has all the right skills to develop the Hub’s strategic operational plan and is enjoying having a hands-on role in getting the hub up and running.”

The Hub is a partnership between the four biggest District Health Boards in New Zealand: Auckland, Canterbury, Counties Manukau and Waitemata with financial backing of the Ministry of Economic Development, the Auckland Tourism and Events Economic Development organisation and the Canterbury Development Corporation.
For more information about the New Zealand Health Innovation Hub visit www.innovation.health.nz.

ENDS

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