It Seems My Concern About What Is Going On In Hospital IT In South Australia Is More Than Warranted! A Whistle Blower Strikes!

A couple of weeks ago I published a blog suggesting there was a need for a review of what was going on with the EPAS project.

Wednesday, May 06, 2015

It Looks Like The South Australian Implementation of EPAS Is Going Pretty Badly. An External Expert Review Is Really Needed and Egos Parked At The Door!

Here is the link:

http://aushealthit.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/it-looks-like-south-australian.html

The relevant paragraphs in the blog were:

“Oh dear. This all suggests that a fundamental re-think of what has gone on to date and just how progress can be made is vital. This project has been going on for years - you would have thought the rough edges would have been addressed long before this.

An independent, external and expert view is clearly vital here!”

While I was happily resting after the weekend an e-mail from an unknown person appeared and only just avoided the spam filter. What it said was just explosive.

Obviously the e-mail was anonymous and I can’t totally verify what is said but the background provided and what is said seem more than legitimate to me, and likely truthful to me.

Here are the points made by the e-mail to be place in the public domain (quoted):

“I offer the following information in the hope that maybe you can use it in some way:

- a comprehensive review of the EPAS program was done, often referred to internally as the 'Bearing Point Report' (Bearing Point was the name of the consultancy that did the work.)

- the review recommended a suite of changes to the program, Health were tasked with formally responding (to my knowledge they never did properly respond)

- the former CIO of health, David Johnston, was sacked (~August) last year as a direct result of EPAS' failure

- Health set up a multimillion $$$ deal, without any public tender, with Telstra to supply 'Bed Side Monitors' (that being the name of the project) ostensibly in order to support EPAS, the monitors have been rolled out at great expense but to very little utility

- the 'Oracle Corporate Systems' project has cost ~3X its projected budget and is still nowhere near completion (a review of the OCS at the same time as the EPAS review, predicted this outcome)

- the company behind EPAS (Allscripts) was previously in serious trouble, their share market price tumbling when 1/2 their board resigned and they reported serious other problems (I have not kept up with them for the past year or so, not sure of their current situation)”’

I have to say it is a long time since we have had a leak like this!

I have only two points to make:

1. There seems to be some cover-ups going on in SA and with a new Hospital coming that can’t be good for the future!

2. A new updated public review is even more urgent as is the release of all the material mentioned above.

What more can other insiders tell us do you think?

David.