Should the boards decide to merge next year and that be approved by the Government, the appointment of a chairman or chairwoman would be made by Health Minister Tony Ryall.
Mr Millar, who was appointed chairman of the Otago District Health Board in February, said he would be interested in the role if it came about.
One of his strengths would be that he had served on both boards.
The decision about one board will not be made by the respective boards until February, but Mr Millar said the matter was likely to come up at the boards' joint workshop in late January.
At that stage, while management is not expected to have completed its report on the matter, some idea of its thinking was expected.
Mr Millar said if it turned out management was leaning towards a merger then the boards would need to start thinking through some of the practical issues, such as "How on earth are we going to run the show between April 1 and November 30?".
If "we crash the two boards together", what would that mean in terms of how committees were run and the structure of the management team?
(It has been suggested that if the boards decided to merge, they could begin operating jointly until the end of the existing three-year term in November.)
Mr Millar said he was "anxious" to point out discussions at the workshop would not involve decision-making behind closed doors.
The boards' workshop is to discuss their district annual plans.
The board had a big year ahead, he said.
He hoped people would defer electioneering and posturing as long as possible as the board had some substantial decisions to make and such behaviour could get in the way of good decision-making.
One of the issues it continued to face was an ongoing deficit and how to break even over time.
Some of the big multi-employer collective agreements in health were up for renegotiation next year, including those for senior doctors and the nurses.
One of the big regional issues was still the unsustainable expense of high emergency department attendance, in urban and rural hospitals.
A solution had to be found other than "us saying we've got no money", Mr Millar said.
Finding a better working model involving the relationship between community and hospital care in this area would not be simple, he said.
Changes to ACC funding seemed likely to result in "pressure on our front doors" in both the urban and rural settings.
Shifting costs from ACC to the health budget would not solve anything.
The new Otago-Southland primary health organisation, which is to be in place by the middle of the year, could have a role to play in this area.
Mr Millar would like to see early discussions with the new PHO on the possibility of it holding the budget for community medicines, but accepted the issue would not be settled quickly.
The board has been concerned for some time about the burgeoning community medicines bill and making medicine use more effective.
Also on the two boards' agenda is the development of a formal communications plan to support effective community consultation.
Some members had been concerned that the board had consulted too late and in a way which did not encourage the widest involvement.
Mr Millar said he accepted it was not something the board did well and it needed to look at options, including using the social networking media.
However, it did have to be careful that people were not overloaded with information.
During the year, the board will be conducting a health needs assessment for the region.
It would have expected to consult over its district strategic plan, but it was not clear at this stage if there might be changes to that process as a result of the introduction of the National Health Board, Mr Millar said.
His year had involved some reorganisation after he was appointed following the sacking of chairman Richard Thomson, but he felt that the last half of the year had gone smoothly.
One of his regrets was that living in the Ranfurly area he was not on hand to attend as many staff events as he would like.
On the question of whether the board paid enough attention to leading on issues of quality improvement, Mr Millar said he thought it was difficult for a board to impose that from the top.
"The reality is that quality comes from the people doing the job.
If you can't capture the hearts and minds of them then you're just shooting the breeze."
Asked whether there might be a public perception that all the board was concerned about was money, Mr Millar said discussions on wider issues of care were done reasonably well at committee level and often not re-discussed by the board.
The discussions on finance were generally at board level and this might give the impression that money was the only concern.
As chairman he tried to ensure there was balance in the debate and that other issues got fair and reasonable consideration.
