Ranta, Anna

Anna RANTA

MD (Pennsylvania State Univ) 1999, Am Bd Cert Neurology 2004,

PhD (Otago) 2014, FRACP 2011, FAHA, FWSO

BA, Philosophy and Biology, St Mary's College of Maryland 1990 - 1994

Completed neurology training in Virginia, USA, 2000 - 2004

Came to NZ in 2007, initially to Palmerston North.

Consultant Neurologist and Lead Stroke Physician, MidCentral DHB, 2007 - 2015

Associate Dean, University of Otago 2008 - 2014

PG Cert, Public Health (Massey) 2010

Executive Clinical Director, Medicine, Cancer and Community CCDHB, 2014 - 2018

Clinical Leader Stroke, MOH 2014 - 2018

Consultant Neurologist, CCDHB 2015 - present

HOD Medicine, University of Otago, Wellington 2018 - present

Clinical Co-Director, National Stroke Clot Retrieval Programme, MOH 2021 - present

Her research focuses on hyper-acute stroke and TIA service delivery optimization, health registries, big data linkage, health equity, health economics, clinical networks, and knowledge translation.  She is the primary investigator (PI) for the New Zealand Health Research Council (HRC) funded REGIONS Care study assessing ethnic and geographic inequities in stroke service access and outcome, PI for a pragmatic community based cluster randomized clinical trial (RCT) assessing telestroke inside the ambulance, Co-PI for the B-SAFE study, an HRC funded RCT testing the impact of an atrial fibrillation primary care electronic decision support tool, and co-leads the data linkage aspects of the HRC funded ARCOS V Programme – a greater Auckland stroke epidemiology study that has spanned over four decades.

She has led numerous local, regional, and national stroke initiatives including the implementation of New Zealand’s first regional Telestroke network, the development of the National Stroke Registry.

She is the immediate past Chair of the New Zealand National Stroke Network, the current President of the Neurological Association of New Zealand, the Treasurer of Stroke Society of Australasia, Board Member of the World Stroke Organization and Australian and New Zealand Association of Neurologists, and serves on the editorial boards of Stroke and Neurology.