Press release: He Ako Hiringa to shut down 30 June

We regret to inform you that He Ako Hiringa will shut down on 30 June 2024, as our contract with Pharmac is coming to an end.

Pharmac has changed their approach from having a multi-year contract with a single provider, to having relationships with a range of providers and commissioning work as needed. We’d like to thank Pharmac and our extensive network of subject matter experts and advisors for their support; it’s been a privilege having the opportunity to contribute to medicine access equity in Aotearoa.

He Ako Hiringa launched in 2020, in the middle of pandemic lockdowns, and since then we have produced hundreds of resources for primary care. This change of direction is disappointing for us, but we’re proud of the work we’ve done and the education that we’ve been able to provide to the sector over the last four years.

We would also like to thank all our users who supported our work, signed up for our website and explored our content. The feedback we have received from you has been invaluable and we hope that our work has helped you in your practice.

He Ako Hiringa will continue to provide resources to support primary care with the responsible use of medicines, including access to the EPiC dashboard, until 30 June 2024.

Most of the He Ako Hiringa resources, except for the EPiC dashboard, will be transferred to other websites. The future of the EPiC dashboard is unknown at present, however access to practitioner and practice data stories will likely not be available from 1 July 2024 for a period. We are currently considering all options for continuing to publish our data stories.

If you have any questions, concerns or feedback, or if you/your organisation are interested in supporting the publication of the EPiC dashboard, please contact Matui director Anna Mickell at amickell@matui.co.nz.

Matui is an independent company that provides anonymised medicine analytics reporting based on the New Zealand health data collections and were contracted by Pharmac to publish He Ako Hiringa between 2020 and 2024.