The DHB begins two days of public meetings on its draft primary care and community care plan today.
If it is adopted, healthcare at home will be a priority and a range of IT systems will be put in place to enable that.
The DHB's computer networks will need upgrading if its vision of self-management in a ''healthcare home'' is to work.
''Technology is a key plank of the strategy,'' SDHB strategy, primary and community executive director Lisa Gestro said.
''Our systems are outdated, and the opportunity to leverage the new build is really significant here because we are able to bring forward some of the infrastructure requirements that would support the new hospital and that will also be useful in integrating across the system.
''We are able to start thinking about that now and front-foot that investment that is earmarked for the new hospital, so there will be significant investment around the primary and community strategy where it comes to integrating hospital and primary care.''
With the Dunedin hospital rebuild, as well as planned development work at Lakes District Hospital, this was the right time to implement the proposed new strategy, Mrs Gestro said.
The strategy will also require money, which is an issue for a DHB operating with a significant deficit and needing money to keep a crumbling Dunedin Hospital operating until a new hospital is built.
''You can't take money out of a secondary system and put it into primary with effect immediately. There needs to be some transition.
''I think we have been quite overt about the fact that we are now prioritising care in the community ... We would be looking to support primary or integrated care as opposed to traditional, secondary care.''
The systems the SDHB hopes to implement are ones that have been used by several other DHBs, as well as overseas.
While the changes elsewhere had been gradual, the SDHB hoped to create ''wholesale change'' and move the entire Otago-Southland healthcare system forward, Mrs Gestro said.
''That's what been missing. Our approaches previously have been a bit piecemeal and a bit patchwork.''
Shorter waiting times for appointments, greater access to after-hours care and better co-ordination between providers were among the outcomes the strategy hoped to achieve.
The proposed plan was about appropriate care, not less care, and taking services out of hospitals that are more appropriate in a community setting, Mrs Gestro said.
''That will free up specialists to make sure they are seeing people in a timely way who need to be seen, and that's not the case universally currently, as we do have waiting lists for a number of our services.''
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New Zealand is not a large country but is divided up with 20 district hospital boards. These boards are being individually tasked with developing their own health delivery model and systems. Sure, a single national model would not be good. But surely the replication and waste inherent in 20 boards doing their own thing is also not good. It seems to me a change in government would be a good time to rethink help delivery policy / process. A central health department should be able to develop 2, 3 or 4 service options and infrastructure cheaper than doing it 20 times. Not another cost shifting exercise such as the food debacle, not just ideas that only work in Auckland, but just eliminate duplicated effort.
No doubt the changes in technology and the application within healthcare is going to deliver a significant transformation. Consider alone the work Google are doing in this space. What has been imagined for some time is about to become reality. People will soon have enhanced individualised records, managed in real time, and more control over who and how they share this information with. Encouraging that these technologies are being look at, but have more than some concern that the potential will be underestimated and in 10 years time we will be replacing things again as we didn't see the real future.