The Following Amazing Report Appeared Today. I Am Just Staggered!

This came up just a few hours ago.

DoHA confirms next round of PCEHR funding in negotiations

The third round of funding for the project will be allocated to the National e-Health Transition Authority (NeHTA) by November 2011

• Chloe Herrick (Computerworld)
• 23 August, 2011 11:24

The Federal Department of Health has confirmed it is in negotiations for the third tranche of funding to be allocated to the National e-Health Transition Authority (NeHTA) for the $466.7 million Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) project.

Speaking to Computerworld Australia, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Ageing (DoHA) said negotiations were progressing in line with the end of the previous stage with a new allocation to be made by November this year.

The spokeswoman could not comment on the exact amount of funds to be allocated to NeHTA, but said it would be dependent on contract deliverables and used to build upon the work completed so far.

The second round of funding received by NeHTA, $50.5 million for the period from May to October 2011, covered a number of areas including system architecture, detailed business requirements, security design, standard requirements and technical specifications. This followed the allocation of the initial $38.5 million to support the PCEHR project from November 2010 to April 2011.

“NeHTA is also acting as the Department’s managing agent in relation to the recently announced National Infrastructure, National Change and Adoption and Benefits Partners and the 12 lead implementation sites,” the spokeswoman said.

Lots more here:

http://www.cio.com.au/article/398098/doha_confirms_next_round_pcehr_funding_negotiations/

Here is the earlier report for reference.

NEHTA receives next instalment of $466.7m e-health project

The funding of $38.5 million will assist the organisation in the next stage of its personally-controlled electronic health record (PCEHR) project

• Chloe Herrick (Computerworld)
• 03 February, 2011 12:45

The National e-health Transition Authority (NEHTA) has confirmed it has received the latest tranche of a total of $466.7 million in funding from the Federal Department of Health for the next stage of its personally-controlled electronic health record (PCEHR) project.

According to a NEHTA spokesperson, funding of $38.5 million will be provided for a six month period to 30 June this year under which the organisation will provide management support services as private-sector partners are hired for four key roles: a national infrastructure partner; a change and adoption partner; a benefits realisation partner and an external assurance adviser.

Much more here

http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/375382/nehta_receives_next_installment_466_7m_e-health_project/

So what we have here is about $89M paid to NEHTA for their contribution to the PCEHR for the year to October, 2011.

All this seems just utterly over the top to me. That some of money could, for example, pay for 1 year for about 590 staff each being paid $150,000 p.a. What on earth were even ½ of this number of people actually doing?

We are also told above the funds were for “a number of areas including system architecture, detailed business requirements, security design, standard requirements and technical specifications”. Well the flash on this is that DoHA has bought a system, for the sake of speed of implementation, and so a good deal of this work will be out the window as it is just irrelevant to what Accenture is actually delivering.

An audit of just how this money has been spent is urgently required as,- on any reasonable look - the spend seems just profligate in the extreme.

What is even more amazing is that without any public accountability as to what has been delivered even more is to be spent!

I am happy to be shown it is and was all utterly reasonable, but really I find my credulability just a trifle stretched!

I look forward to someone explaining how a spend of this sort can be justified - given that the various Wave sites and provisioning contracts are all apparently funded directly from DoHA.

David.