This appeared last week:
Health ends limbo over Telstra's $220m national cancer register
By Justin Hendry on Mar 6, 2019 7:02AM
Go-live for last major component planned for November.
The protracted period of uncertainty over the replacement of Australia’s outdated bowel cancer screening register has finally been lifted, after the Department of Health issued a firm go-live date for the second-half of its troubled national cancer register being built by Telstra.
The major component of the $220 million single national record for the screening of cervical and bowel cancers has been languishing without a go-live for the last two years, after a complex data migration process stalled the original launch date.
The register was first intended to be ready in time to support both the national bowel and cervical cancer screening programs in March and March 2017.
Two years on and only the cervical cancer component of the register – which went live in December 2017, nine months later than originally planned – is operational.
But the department has now revealed it is planning to shift the bowel cancer register to the consolidated platform in November 2019.
A Health spokesperson told iTnews the migration will involve transferring data from the bowel cancel register held by the Department of Human Services to the new register.
The department is currently working to develop a detailed transition and migration plan for the transition and coordinate when that cut-over will occur, the spokesperson said.
In response to questions on notice from senate estimates, the department said development and testing of the bowel cancer screening register would be finished by August.
Additional functionality in the form of a BI tool will also be added to the cervical cancer register from April to improve reporting, according to the spokesperson.
However some bowel cancer screening register functionality “deemed as not critical” has been postponed until March 2020.
More rather slowly evolving news is found here:
Now the question we have to ask here is who would believe a go-live date that is still 9 months or so in the future, given the track record of the project so far where the whole thing has run pretty late from the get-go.
A prudent approach would be to wait and see when it actually goes live and is actually feature complete I would suggest.
You have to wonder just what have been the reasons for the delays and why it has all taken so long.
Those who were paying attention will remember that an ANAO Audit in mid-2017 was less than pleased with the procurement process after the August 2015 Tender:
“Conclusion
6. In conducting the procurement of the National Cancer Screening Register, the Department of Health complied with the Commonwealth Procurement Rules, effectively managing an open tender process and considering value for money.7. The effectiveness of the procurement has been reduced due to inadequate consideration of risk during planning and poor management of probity and conflicts of interest. The objectives sought by the Government have not been achieved in the agreed timeframe and additional costs have been incurred as a result.”
Here is the link:
Additionally a later parliamentary enquiry wondered if the whole contract should be terminated.
Here is a link from October 2018.
Eventually the work continued and we find ourselves waiting another year for completion.
A proper start to end review is surely needed in 2020 to understand and publish the ‘lessons learnt from the whole process. Hardly a shining moment of Health Department / Telstra Health IT history!
David.
It is all the more sad when you considered it was forced through the Senate on the back of x number of people will die each year without this in place. After 2-3 years delay .....
ReplyDeleteYes indeed, “the question we have to ask here is who would believe a go-live date that is still 9 months or so in the future”?
ReplyDeleteAnd another very important question is: What is the cost of this project (cervical and bowel cancers) – the original budgeted cost?, the cost overruns?, the total cost?
And while “only the cervical cancer component of the register – which went live in December 2017, nine months later than originally planned – is operational”. More importantly, does operational mean fully operational and fully deployed, or only partly deployed with limited functionality?
Also, because some bowel cancer screening register functionality “deemed as not critical” has been postponed until March 2020, we have to ask what does this mean? I suggest “not critical” probably means they are still encountering considerable problems, and/or still behind schedule, and/or making a premature announcement reflecting the desperate need to put a positive spin on an otherwise troubled project.
Finally, “the department said development and testing of the bowel cancer screening register would be finished by August.” Announcing such distant deadlines leaves one breathlessly sceptical.
Wonder if they had a visit from “Agile” fairy. For a small fee we can make your organisation Agile.
ReplyDeleteWill parallel testing be employed or will it be a sudden drop-dead switch-over? There is not too much that could go wrong with a sudden switch-over is there? It's not like the AHPRA fiasco when doctors were de-registered and unable to practice, or the Qld payroll disaster.
ReplyDeleteThe Agile Fairy - like it. Yes there are a number of Government bodies now starting to see there Agile efforts fall apart. The mistake the will make is bringing in commercial avails organisations to do an assessment and recommendation as is the practice when things go wrong. The problem will be in the external help will have no understanding of how government operates, thus there advice will simply add fuel to the fire.
ReplyDelete@8:46. I would be happy to discover if someone on that project new what parallel testing was. I fear this will set a new benchmark for failure.
Ah the Agile Fairy: helping you get nowhere faster.
ReplyDeleteIt's all about delivering the MVP - minimal viable product. Anything else will be in 'Phase 2' (and cost another 'small fee').
It will be interesting to see if what is delivered is any improvement over the current screening register.
The Agile Manifesto works well in some domains but not in others, when the try and scale it or just rebadge everything Agile or Lean things start to fall apart. Agile has become an industry which oddly enough creates more wealth for training and consultancy than is does in what is cams out of.
ReplyDeleteIn the right hands for the right reason it is a powerful tool, otherwise it is an expense distraction that is fast becoming the high interest credit card of technical debt
Agile is another name for trial and error. It works when you don't really know what you are doing so you do various things until something works. It's the opposite of architecture and design and is more like throwing mud at a brisk wall to see what sticks.
ReplyDeleteIt's the opposite of architecture and design
ReplyDeleteThat would explain why there is only one document related to the hard delete function in the GovHR.
Agile combined with continuous integration and extensive test suites is a very good technique but I doubt the ADHA could write a video store app, so its unlikely they would succeed with it, it does still require domain knowledge and I have seen no evidence of that to date.
ReplyDelete