I Wonder Will We See Similar Accountability For A Health IT Disaster As Has Happened In The USA.

The resignation of the US Secretary for Health was announced a few days ago.

Reporting is found here:

Sebelius quits after HealthCare.gov mess

Posted on Apr 11, 2014

By Bernie Monegain, Editor

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius seemed to have weathered the maelstrom surrounding the botched rollout of the government's health insurance exchanges back in October and come through the other side where more than 7 million people signed up for health insurance through the exchanges.

But on Thursday, after five years at the HHS helm, Sebelius resigned.

President Barack Obama is set to nominate Sylvia Mathews Burwell, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, to take over at HHS. She faces congressional confirmation -- where, according to pundits, she is likely to face resistance from Republican senators who continue to oppose the Affordable Care Act.

Back in October the launch of the HealthCare.gov website left people who wanted to sign up unable to do so, with the website apparently unable to handle the rush of applicants. Several Republicans called for Sebelius' resignation and took the opportunity to criticize Obamacare, their name for the ACA.

Lots more here:

http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/hhs-secretary-sebelius-resigns

There is even another Australia report here showing how this is reasonably important news:

Obama's health secretary Sebelius to resign

• AFP
• AFP
• April 11, 2014 9:12AM

BARACK Obama's Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is to resign, paying the price for the chaotic initial rollout of the US President's signature healthcare law, officials said.

Sebelius will officially step down on Friday, US time, and Obama will nominate Sylvia Mathews Burwell, his current budget director, to replace her, the officials said.

The administration will hope that the departure of Sebelius will draw a symbolic line under the early implementation period of the law, which had a botched debut due to a malfunctioning sign-up website.

The administration was forced into an emergency effort to fix the site and other implementation problems — and 7.5 million people have now signed up for health insurance under the new law.

More here:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/us-politics/obamas-health-secretary-sebelius-to-resign/story-fngeyb4x-1226880666416

The back story here is that implementation of the web-site Healthcare.gov, which was to assist in obtaining healthcare insurance for millions of uninsured, and which was  associated with some large scale health reform, went badly technically and was associated  with the implementation being rushed, not properly tested and failing badly on a number of occasions.

There has been a lot of political blame attached to the Secretary (She is at the the same as our Health Minister and a member of the US Cabinet) and after 5 years she has finally resigned - interestingly after fixing things pretty well and having had 7.5 million enrolled using the system.

It was also pretty impressive just how quickly the system has been fixed and now appears to be working and that only after it is fixed has the Secretary left.

If only  we could see the same responsibility from our Departmental Health Secretary! Decide, with proper consultation, on the correct fix for the PCEHR Program, implement it and then accept responsibility for the overspend and delays and leave - given the responsible Minister has already left!

We can dream I guess!

David.