2018 Sysmex Award for Health Informatics Finalists Selected

Alice Ao, Sabrina Tkatch and Sayaka Steed have been named as finalists in the annual Sysmex Award for Health Informatics. The creative entries from these third year Bachelor of Health Sciences degree students at The University of Auckland stood out from the wide range of inventive business cases submitted to be selected as the top three finalists. The winner of the award will be announced at the 2018 HiNZ Conference in Wellington this November.

Now in its 8th year, the Sysmex Award for Health Informatics was established to encourage innovative thinking and inspire quality in health informatics education. It is open to students undertaking their third year of a Bachelor of Health Sciences (BHSc) degree at The University of Auckland. Each year, Sysmex New Zealand and Auckland University collaborate to determine the assignment question, the selection of finalists and, ultimately, the winner of the award. Finalists are shortlisted based on their innovation, use of technology and feasibility. Karen Day, Senior Lecturer in Health Informatics at Auckland University, stated, “It was interesting to see the different approaches the students took to this year’s assignment topic ‘how can we use the big data generated by health services to create interventions that improve clinical care’ and, as always, I felt inspired by the creativity of the students and how they have synthesised their learning.”

(From L to R: Alice Ao, Sabrina Tkatch and Sayaka Steed)

Our first finalist, Alice Ao, proposed a clinical decision support tool to measure, build knowledge and empower the treatment of childhood obesity. The second finalist, Sabrina Tkatch, outlined a highly viable and proactive approach to addressing care and management of mental health for NZ teenagers. And our third finalist, Sayaka Steed, developed a business case for an app that promotes awareness of influenza and prevention measures for the NZ population.

Rose Harding, Marketing Communications Manager at Sysmex New Zealand says, “All of the entries this year were excellent, and it was a difficult job for our judges to select the top three finalists. We believe each finalist’s business case offered an original solution that was innovative, feasible and of benefit to the current NZ health system.”

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