About Sovereignty

Ilya Beda

Lead Architect

Ilya brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise in software architecture and infrastructure design, cemented by 12 years of experience in commercial software development. For the past five years, he has architected and delivered FHIR based healthcare solutions for a variety of companies across the world. Ilya is an active participator in open-source projects and is an active and vocal contributor to the global FHIR community.

Time Blake

Strategic Advisor

Tim has held roles as CIO of the Tasmanian Department of Health and Human Services (and member of the Tasmanian Health Executive Team), Director of Rural eHealth Strategy at New South Wales Health and Strategic Digital Health Advisor at NEHTA and the Commonwealth Dept of Health. Tim's recent work includes developing and implementing a Digital Health Strategy for Primary Health Tasmania, developing the "Mobile Strategy for the My Health Record" and "Future Design for the My Health Record" for the Commonwealth Department of Health and leading the update of the National Electronic Medications Management Strategy for NEHTA. Tim played a key role in the development of a mobile, FHIR-based API for Australia’s My Health Record.

Dr Patrick Chia

Clinical IT Systems Design & Implementation

Helped spearhead the conceptualization of the SAF (Singapore Armed Forces) EMR. In 1998, he led Tan Tock Seng Hospital efforts in Medical Informatics and subsequently became Chief Information Officer, National Healthcare Group Polyclinics. He subsequently joined SingHealth to develop the area of medical informatics for SHS. In 2008, he joined MOHH ISD and was responsible for the conceptualization of the Singapore National Electronic Health Record program and led all clinical alignment, clinical requirements, clinical change management and patient safety areas. He was co-chair of the medication taskforce for the NEHR. He continues to provide clinical direction for national projects and has a focus on mental health, child health, medication management and care and case management initiatives. Dr Chia also has a keen interest in developing the informatics framework for precision medicine and transformation in the field of diagnostics..

Mark Cox

Strategic Advisor

Mark has a passion for helping Health IT businesses and Healthcare providers reach their potential. With 35 years' experience in startups and multinational healthcare companies throughout Asia, UK, Europe, Australia, NZ and Canada, he finds ways to make a difference to health and wellbeing through the use of advanced technology. Mark has rich experience in business development, offshore markets, market strategy and partnering. From finding product fit and strategy in local markets, to strategic advice on investment plans, governance and executing a vision..

Dr Minty Dhami

Community Manager

Dr Minty Dhami is originally from India, where she attended the MGM Institute of Health Sciences for her undergraduate degree in Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS). Minty came to NZ in 2020 and recently graduated with Merit from the University of Canterbury with a Master of Health Science Professional Practice degree. Leaving a career in clinical medicine and moving all the way to NZ proved to be hard but a worthwhile decision as Minty strived to fabricate a new path as a Health Informatician. Minty is passionate about delivering healthcare to every individual irrespective of their location or circumstances. Health is a basic human right and no one should be deprived of it at any cost. With Digital Health, Minty believes it is possible to transform healthcare and make disease prevention more accessible to everyone. Her goals relate to The Sovereignty Network’s Vision and Mission of helping people take charge of their own health data.

Dr Peter Gootjes

Director

Peter has spent his career in healthcare services after initially completing medical fellowships in both Public Health Medicine and Medical Administration. He has helped lead organizations in senior governance and management positions across the New Zealand health sector with an emphasis on quality services with a commercial focus.

He works as CEO of a large laboratory services provider contracted to provide both hospital and community based services to many of the District Health Boards in New Zealand. For the last decade he has also been working with CEO Hamish MacDonald to help individuals get better control over their health information.

Grahame Grieve

Strategic Advisor

FHIR Global Product Director. Known as the “Father of FHIR”, HL7.org’s de facto global standard for medical data interoperability. Provides general support for publishing FHIR Release 4 and bulk data implementation for US ONC.

Grahame is a Healthcare Interoperability consultant, developer, and advocate. In his roles as founder and active proponent of HL7 FHIR, Grahame Grieve is a true visionary. His farsightedness, determination, and ability to marshal international intellectual capital focused on interoperability are reshaping healthcare in ways that are still being imagined. His work, and that of so many contributors to this effort, is revolutionizing patient care at the individual and population levels.

Peter Jordan

Strategic Advisor

Peter is an experienced software architect and developer with a particular interest in healthcare information modelling and exchange. He is the Chair of HL7 New Zealand and contracted as a Solutions Architect to Patients First Ltd, working on standards and architecture in support of the NZ Digital Health Work Programme – including HL7® FHIR® Terminology Services. Peter also maintains the NZ CDA Toolkit used in GP2GP patient record transfers and the NZ ePrescription Service. His three decades in the IT industry, in the UK and New Zealand, have included spells with vendors of both primary and secondary care applications and various public sector organisations. Internationally, he is an Affiliate Director on the HL7 International Board; Co-Chair of the HL7 International Council and a Co-Chair of the SNOMED on FHIR Terminology Services Group.

Barbara Manning

Business Manager

Career direct marketer with a knack for developing and implementing strong direct marketing communications objectives and strategies. Solid background in database development, administration, and maintenance. Developed, administered, and maintained several million-record consumer databases, which supported the marketing objectives and fuelled the marketing campaigns. Barbara organizes thoughts and incorporates them into a coherent strategy, ensuring that documentation gets read and understood.

Hamish MacDonald

Founder and CEO

Originally from New Zealand, Hamish MacDonald started building medical software to serve clinicians and patients in Japan from the early 2000s. He founded and built The Diary Corp, becoming an Apple Enterprise Mobility Partner building best in class iOS healthcare solutions. In partnership with Apple, Telstra, Cisco, Airwatch and Entag several large healthcare systems in Australia used the solution as a turnkey virtual hospital and remote monitoring system to connect patients, caregivers and clinicians.

At The Sovereignty Network Hamish's passion is for people to be able to control and benefit from their healthcare data, allowing the data to flow where it needs to go, to whom it needs to go, when it needs to go. This allows equitable bridges to be built between patients and the wider healthcare ecosystem.

Creating a healthcare data economy that works for patients and those that serve them is his driving ambition.

Desi Nair

African Business Unit Lead

A health professional with over 20 years’ experience implementing and directing health and wellness projects in South Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa. Desi brings to the team strategic execution and delivery skills to develop, implement and scale digital health services. He has helped develop multiple clinician and patient support tools to improve health outcomes and improve patient care. Desi is passionate about innovative health solutions, impactful projects and effective behaviour change programmes that deliver meaningful results. Desi's dual role leading African business and projects across both The Sovereignty Network and Ejo Health leverages his experience in implementing and managing healthcare technology projects across many African countries.

Dr Matt Valentine

MD, FACEM, FACEP, PGradDip HlthSci (Clinical Informatics)

Chief Medical Information Officer

Clinical Director for Informatics Bay of Plenty District Health Board. Co-Founder Cure8Health. Matthew is a residency-trained Emergency Medicine specialist from the US. He has lived and worked clinically in New Zealand since 2008. He has an interest in rural medicine and ensuring that all people, regardless of where they live, get high quality care when and where they need it. This has driven his interest in clinical informatics, and the ways technology can empower people and help support the delivery of quality care. This desire motivates not only his clinical work, but led him to co-found Cure8Health and join forces with The Sovereignty Network.

Dr Leona Ishimwe

Data Coach

In 2019, Leona became a General Practioner in Burundi. Before earning her Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) degree, she worked as a medical insurance agent. Leona uses FHIR™ and SNOMED CT (Clinical Terminology) for Sovereignty members around the world, in addition to Open Clinic software in her work as a doctor. She has built a reputation of having a very caring manner with patients, and today is working hard to democratize health data in Africa for all.

Pamella Izere

Data Coach

Pamella Izere is the first person in The Sovereignty Network Africa to use FHIR™ and SNOMED CT (Clinical Terminology) to transcribe medical documents and turn them into clean, interoperable digital health resources. Today, she is helping her family in Burundi by helping people around the world get and own their data. What she does for herself and her family, she does for others who care about owning their pertinent medical data in a format that is accessible to patients, medical professionals and caregivers alike.

Dr Joanna C. Usifo

Data Coach

Joanna is a Medical Officer/ General Practitioner from Nigeria, now specializing in Health Informatics Engineering with a professional focus on HL7 standards and FHIR. She is the first Data Champion from Nigeria in the Sovereignty Network, using SNOMED CT to transcribe medical data. Following her National Youth Service Corps in Nigeria, she ventured into Health Informatics which she enjoys alongside Medical practice.