This appeared last week
Qld Health offers suppliers spot on exclusive e-health panel
Asks for help in big transformation drive.
Queensland Health is asking its IT suppliers to bid for a spot on a limited new panel that will help it move ahead with a mammoth e-health drive.
In the past two years the state government has committed to transforming its procurement in order to make it easier for industry to do business with agencies.
At the same time it has embarked on a significant e-health push, last year bundling the strategic and operational IT functions of its Health department into a new division dubbed eHealth Queensland.
The move was intended to bolster the state's efforts to create a "fully integrated health system", underpinned by an electronic medical record and accessed by a mobile workforce.
Since then, Queensland Health has debuted a 20-year plan for IT investment, kicked off efforts towards the $226.6 million replacement of its patient administration system, and started procurement for a $91 million overhaul of its laboratory information system,
eHealth Queensland has also embarked on the first step in a massive program of systems transformation by signing Fujitsu and Orion Health to provide the underlying plumbing tying all its systems together, before it starts to tackle them one by one.
More here:
This is definitely a very big plan and project - with all the attendant risks. I look forward to hearing from friends up north just how it is all proceeding. There is certainly experience from SA and WA that could provide useful lessons!
David.
David, based on historical and current experiences-SA & WA - this statement should raise some serious concerns."Since then, Queensland Health has debuted a 20-year plan for IT investment, kicked off efforts towards the $226.6 million replacement of its patient administration system, and started procurement for a $91 million overhaul of its laboratory information system".
ReplyDeleteSuggested readings: (An Australian focus)
1. Coiera E. Building a National Health IT System from the middle out. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2009;16(3):271-3. Epub 2009/05/02.
2. Coiera E. Why system inertia makes health reform so difficult. BMJ. 2011;342:d3693. Epub 2011/06/28.
3. Coiera E. Why e-health is so hard. Med J Aust. 2013;198(4):178-9. Epub 2013/03/05.
Terry makes a good point based on historical and current experiences. It raises the fundamental questions:
ReplyDeleteQ: What lessons have been learned?
Q: Will anyone heed those lessons?
Q: What needs to be done to improve the outcomes from these large expenditures?
Q: Once a vendor has been selected and the contract awarded what is the pathway ahead post tender? Is it then all gung ho - let the waggons roll and throw caution to the wind - or is there a staged implementation (call it proof-of-concept pilot sites)to justify ongoing expenditure and further roll out?
Q: Does the political self-imposed sense of urgency undermine project viability and risk minimization (a la QLD Health Payroll implementation with no parallel running)!
"eHealth Queensland has also embarked on the first step in a massive program of systems transformation by signing Fujitsu and Orion Health to provide the underlying plumbing tying all its systems together, before it starts to tackle them one by one."
ReplyDeleteIn the real world an architect would work with the client to decide where a house was to be built, the position of the house on the block, the outline of the house, the location and purpose of each of the rooms, and then and only then plan the plumbing for the house and how it was to be attached to the sewer mains.
At first glance those wizards in QLD seem to be doing it backwards. I guess they know what they're doing. They did such a good job with IBM
Qld govt ordered to pay IBM costs
In last year’s Supreme Court hearing lawyers for IBM said failures with the scheme were because the government was “not able to define and stick to a scope”.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/qld-govt-ordered-to-pay-ibm-costs/news-story/8fd167dab8bba8f79bb2a052fa4dc13a?nk=c545b26df7e14c99ef3e083a8b00b8be-1460006370
(sorry about the URL, but it bypasses the paywall.)
OK: look at the figure for the PAS replacement. Is that really the figure QH expects its going to cost to fully replace its existing HBCIS footprint! DONT THINK SO. Those in the know would know whether or not this is a low ball figure. QH Payroll got off to a brilliant start when the initial budget figure was extraordinarily low, which indicated the project client had NFI.
ReplyDeleteMe thinks QH has not learnt at all. And the evidence is already there for all to see.
A replacement for the HBCIS PAS, on the other hand, is still in the planning stage. HBCIS is approaching 25 years in operation and was identified in Queensland's 2007 eHealth strategy as needing to be replaced before it reached technical obsolescence this year.
ReplyDeleteOriginally estimated to likely cost between $250 and $350m, a Queensland Audit Office (QAO) report in 2012 revised that cost up to over $440m.
(pulse magazine 2015)