Health NZ to begin emailing patients for appointments and health information

Forums › Health and fitness › Health NZ to begin emailing patients for appointments and health information

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freitasm

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#3366658 23-Apr-2025 08:58

wellygary:

Most GPs appear to have moved to App based appointment and reminder models,

Great to see Central Government reinventing the wheel, rather than adopting an off the shelf model for solving a problem that I bet has been solved in multiple health providers all around the world,

Email is the lowest common denominator. I don't think there's enough smartphone coverage on older people, people with low income, etc that would allow MoH to contact them via app notifications.

freitasm

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#3366659 23-Apr-2025 09:02

yitz:

I don't see anything wrong with *.health.nz the former Canterbury DHB had cdhb.health.nz

*.healthnz.govt.nz is long winded and I guess the OP was also thinking of this https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=48&topicid=316266

First because only official organisations can get a govt.nz domain. Then (as mentioned), if the domain is using correct SPF, DKIM and DMARC the emails will appear as legit.

If a scammer sends an email spoofing these domains, it will be rejected automatically. If a scammer sends an email with an address that uses something.edu.kr then it's obviously a scam.

I do have a problem with cdhdb.health.nz but don't have a problem with healthnz.govt.nz

freitasm

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#3366660 23-Apr-2025 09:04

cddt:

snj:

Uhhh this isn't a new thing, the Auckland DHBs have been doing this since pre-COVID. Haven't received a physical letter in years. Might be for the best too, for the last 6 months I was getting monthly e-mails along the lines of "You've been waiting X days to see the [service], you are still on the waiting list", would've been wasteful if they sent them via snail mail.

Not my experience in Auckland. Perhaps because the appointments were for a child, and children don't have email addresses.

We repeatedly received notifications of appointments being made after the date of the appointment. I.e. the letter was printed on the 1st for an appointment on the 8th, but then we only received it on the 11th (thanks NZ Post). Then on the 21st we received another letter stating that since we had missed our appointment, they would reschedule it and send another letter. Then when we received that letter a month later, the new appointment date had passed. This scenario repeated three times until I visited the hospital in person to get an appointment made.

In Wellington. In December I received a letter for a consult in March. In February I received a letter for a MRI in April. I got an email reminder for the MRI and also a phone call reminder.

yitz

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#3366879 23-Apr-2025 17:24

freitasm:

First because only official organisations can get a govt.nz domain. Then (as mentioned), if the domain is using correct SPF, DKIM and DMARC the emails will appear as legit.

If a scammer sends an email spoofing these domains, it will be rejected automatically. If a scammer sends an email with an address that uses something.edu.kr then it's obviously a scam.

What you have said pretty much applies to .health.nz too...
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/new-health-domain-name-launched-healthnz

"The .health.nz domain will improve confidence in the credibility of web-based health information and will enable members of the sector to be easily identified in online communications."

In fact the identity provider is already hosted at identity.health.nz so you could conceivably keep everything first-party...

I can see it from the point of view that .govt.nz gives more authoritativeness and therefore does a better job of commanding attention.

freitasm: I do have a problem with cdhdb.health.nz but don't have a problem with healthnz.govt.nz

Obviously you are having problems due to the typo... 😛

PJ48

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#3366897 23-Apr-2025 18:50

allan:

Also letters from specialists in Capital & Coast DHB/HealthNZ. You see one (having of course waited many months to get the appointment) and they say they will write to you to confirm their discussion etc. Five weeks later you get a letter that shows they dictated it the same day, it then waited four weeks to be "approved" and you got it the following week. Who exactly needs to approve it? Don't they trust their own specialist?

the approved bit refers to the time taken for the administration staff to type the dictation, and get it back to the specialist who then indeed approves it to go out to the primary care provider and the patient. Patient administration staff are under severe pressure - they are undervalued and there is not enough of them because they are "backroom staff". Most hospitals do not have automated dictate to type software, and many clinicians don't have time to train the software even if it is in place.

Bluntj

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#3371747 9-May-2025 13:46

I received mine in my spam folder from "Health NZ Waitaha Canterbury".

Came with 3 options to click to confirm correct email address. I still havnt, but reading the above Geekzone thread I probably will click.

I believe Health NZ could have done a lot better, especially as older patients are very wary of scams.

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#3396304 22-Jul-2025 22:38

Sorry, belated discovery of this thread. A couple of notes :)

1) health.nz is a moderated 2LD - the Ministry of Health is the moderator of record.

2) Health New Zealand (Te Whatu Ora) is not the same organisation as the Ministry of Health. (compare: NZTA vs Ministry of Transport)

3) Te Whatu Ora / Health New Zealand use tewhatuora.govt.nz or healthnz.govt.nz as their 'new' mail domains (in that IT environment) but all of the domains used by either the District Health Boards or by the Shared Service Agencies that were wholly owned by DHB's, are still valid and still in-use. The majority (not all) sit within either health.nz or govt.nz and so it should be relatively difficult to see them forged for scam purposes (if your mail provider does the usual checks).

4) health.govt.nz belongs to the Ministry of Health. Whilst there's still some service overlaps between HNZ and MoH it's important to understand the difference - most clinical stuff will be from HNZ. The Ministry's role is different.

5) If you get an email from a health.nz or govt.nz domain and it has passed the usual scam checks (SPF, DKIM, etc) you should be reasonably confident. I don't see what else you'd expect them to do for legitimacy.

No signature to see here, move along...

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