"To provide an inexpensive, high quality mechanism for the healthcare community of New Zealand. By connecting key medical facilities, resources and specialists we are intent on delivering a strategically advantageous device to benefit New Zealand." NZTPS Mission Statement
Founded in 2001 as a partnership between Starship Foundation, the Paediatric Society of New Zealand and 10 founding District health Boards, NZTPS or TelePaeds is a non-profit incorporated society. Our aim is to provide a core communication network to ensure equity of access to specialist medical care for all children regardless of where they live.
Our founding vision was the establishment of national infrastructure for the delivery of managed videoconferencing over a reliable network, with accessible and easy to use equipment, enabling the Paediatric “community” to deliver professional education, workforce development and ongoing clinical care.
We initially envisaged 3 phases of growth and development. Phase 1 was the establishment of a national IP based network connecting the founding DHBs to the service. Phase 2 was growing the network capacity and connecting all DHBs to a managed subscription service. Phase 3 was the broadening of our service to other related sectors and the development a “store and forward” capability so teaching and ongoing education could be recorded and retrieved later by individual users.
We are proud to say we have realised our initial vision. All DHBs in NZ are connected to a fast, secure backbone running over the Telecom New Zealand One Office network. All centres in New Zealand that provide specialist secondary and tertiary child health services are now connected to our managed telemedicine service.
We are now the only provider of managed telemedicine services in NZ. Our network now has capacity and is capable of being configured to run multiple parallel telemedicine services.
To ensure viability of our Paediatric service we have also extended our services to other sectors, the largest undertaking being the complete redevelopment of the South Island mental health network for the SISSAL consortium. This connected all mental health services and many rural medical centres to a dedicated mental health network in 28 locations in the South Island.
In addition, we are now providing telemedicine for Adult and Paediatric RACP training, ENT surgical training, Genetics services, forensic pathology, palliative care and multiple nursing workshops and study days. We are also advising on specific projects to assist with the delivery of cancer care, palliative care and midwifery education.
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"our team"
Executive Team and NZTPS Staff
Dr. Michael J Sullivan FRACP DCH PhD, Chairman
Dr Michael Sullivan is a Consultant Paediatric Oncologist with the Canterbury District Health Board and Director of Research of the Children's Cancer Research Group, Christchurch School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Otago. He trained in Science and Medicine at the University of Otago and completed Specialist training in Paediatrics in 1991. He went on to train in Paediatric Oncology with a Clinical/Research Oncology fellowship in Australia and returned to New Zealand in 1994 as a Cancer Society of New Zealand Repatriation Research Fellow. He joined the Cancer Genetics Laboratory in Dunedin completing a PhD in molecular genetics of cancer in 1998. Since then he has established his own laboratory based research group at the Christchurch School of Medicine and combines this with clinical practice at the Children's Haematology Oncology Centre, Christchurch Hospital.
Simon Hayden, Chief Executive
In 2002 Simon took up a role with the Service to create and develop a national video conferencing service, for Paediatrics, in conjunction with the Starship Foundation. Prior to working at TelePaeds he held positions in Television and Media Technology that focussed on international business, operations and information services. A key aspect of his role is to constantly identify new opportunities and create innovative and high quality solutions for users. Simon is married and has three sons under the age of seven.
Patricia Wright, Executive Trustee
Patricia is an Executive Trustee with responsibility for governance matters and special projects. She came to NZTPS from Starship Foundation where she was one of the founding trustees from 1991 to 1994 before taking on the newly created role of Executive Director. Patricia was in this position until 2004 and currently holds the role of Starship Foundation Trustee. During her time as Executive Director Patricia was responsible for initiating the New Zealand Telepaediatric Service. In 2003 she handed over responsibility to newly appointed CEO, Simon Hayden and became an Executive Trustee. Starship Foundation remains a key supporter of NZTPS. Patricia is also a Trustee of the New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation a role which she has held since 1996. She lives with her husband Alastair and has two daughters Katherine and Eleanor.
Miles Smith ANZIM, National Network Manager
Miles joined the NZTPS team in December 2005 and has the responsibility of managing the technology and network infrastructure. Prior to joining NZTPS, he worked with several technology companies, including Marshal Software (designers of MailMarshal, WebMarshal etc) and the US based NetIQ.
Kathleen Russell, Administrator
Kathy joined NZTPS in April 2007 and is responsible for managing the office and accounts. This is her first job in New Zealand having relocated from the US in 2005. She received a BA from Boston College and has over 15 years experience working in organizations ranging from small not-for-profit theatre companies to large corporates. Kathy's very happy to be residing in New Zealand with her kiwi husband and three children.
Adrian Goddard, Video/Audio Helpdesk Technician 
Adrian is the NZTPS Network Coordinator and the person you talk to when you call the 0800 Helpdesk number. He also supervises the TelePaeds Bridge, Content Server and bookings. Adrian has been with TelePaeds since February 2007 and has previous experience working in I.T. sales and repairs. He has also worked as a Hammer-hand. He has qualifications in I.T and 3D Animation.
Board Members
Tertiary Representatives: Dr. Thorsten Stanley (Capital and Coast District Health Board; Dr. Pamela Jackson (Otago District Health Board);
Core Member Representatives: Dr. Roger Tuck (Northland District Health Board); Dr. David Montgomery (Counties Manukau District Health Board)
Paediatric Society Representative: Dr. Nick Baker (Nelson Marlborough District Health Board and President of the Paediatric Society of New Zealand)
Paediatric Nurse Representative: Karyn Bycroft (Auckland District Health Board)
Allied Health Representative: Catherine Coups (Auckland District Health Board)
Other Board Members: Dr. Phil Weston (Waikato District Health Board); Dr. Philip Jeffrey Brown (Mid Central District Health Board)
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