adam harnessing the power of information

IF you’re going to have “courageous conversations” you need to compile the data to back them up and, for Turanga Health, that is Adam Tapsell's job.

Since he joined the primary health organisation in August 2020, Adam's work as a data analyst has involved pulling together all sorts of information, from what staff have been doing to who they have spent time with, and the outcomes of those connections.

“And we share that data on a weekly basis,” he says. “On Mondays our teams all meet to see what is happening in their areas then on Fridays they come back together to look at the week that was, the aim being to measure the impact of our activities to help us define and manage future goals.”

Those goals, of course, focus on better outcomes for whānau and achieving that goal has been a constant in Adam's near 30-year career.

Born and raised in Gisborne, as a university graduate his first job was the seven years he spent as a probation officer, in Hamilton.

“I'd actually studied management but had always wanted to help people and that job taught me the important lesson that you should never take people at face value.”

By the early 2000s, though Adam, Ngāti Porou, Te Arawa, Ngāti Kahungunu, had a hankering to travel so headed for the United Kingdom where he worked for New Zealand Immigration, and where he and wife, Kylie, had their first child.

But while they were connected with the Ngāti Rānana London Māori Club, the couple missed whānau support and headed back home where, between Gisborne and Rotorua, Adam worked for ACC, Housing NZ and Whānau Ora, as an advocate for whānau for the Ministry of Social Development, and in iwi finance and job placement.

“My work has always been focused on the betterment of people and if you are into spreadsheets and numbers, which I am, the data analysis I am doing now is a useful way of doing that,” Adam says.
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“In terms of where Turanga Health currently sits and how it wants to grow as an organisation, data is a powerful tool it can use to its advantage in that ongoing journey.”

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