Smart Health in Regional Areas, with Bruce Winzar

In this episode I had a really fascinating conversation with Bruce Winzar, the Executive Director of Innovation & Digital Services and Chief Information Officer responsible for Information Technology, Architectures and Applications, Innovation & Research at Bendigo Health. As part of our spotlight on the regions this month, I wanted to speak with Bruce specifically about his experiences fostering Smart Health initiatives in the Bendigo region of Victoria. In this episode, Bruce and I discuss how as visit to Amsterdam in 2007 sparked his interest in Smart Cities and Smart Community concepts, and why he believes it's so important for the economic and community development in regional areas. Bruce explains the power of the strengths-based approach to Smart Communities in regional areas, which for Bendigo means a focus on Smart Health initiatives. He shares a bit about the projects he's working on, including the new Bendigo Hospital ICT and ePR project, with its focus on data and innovation via a Startup Centre. He tells us how having a mix of key players and regional champions is important for integration, as is creating an intentional ecosystem and environment of collaboration. We finish our chat talking bout the emerging trend of refocusing on change management when building Smart Communities, and why glossing over the change management process in the past has been detrimental. A quick warning that there are a couple of audio glitches in this episode however I think you will find this conversation fascinating and enjoy the insights Bruce shares into Smart Regional Health. As always, we hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it! Find the full show notes at: www.mysmart.community Connect with Bruce via email bwinzar@bendigohealth.org.au or @cio_bh on Twitter and follow Bendigo Health via the Facebook Page Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community Connect via LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook @SmartCommHQ The Smart Community Podcast is produced by Perk Digital.