This appeared during last week:
Former Queensland Health exec reveals he resigned from $35m RIVeR project in 2019 over his concerns
Matthew Newton, The Cairns Post
July 13, 2021 5:00am
Subscriber only
A FORMER Queensland Health executive says he resigned from the project to develop a $35m e-health record in 2019 because he believed it was “no longer in a position to achieve its original objectives”.
The program, known as RIVeR, is now nine months into a rollout across a total 28 sites, and has been heavily criticised by the Together Queensland Union and the Queensland Nurses and Midwives Union.
The original intention of RIVeR was to create a single electronic patient medical record system accessible in 58 primary, community and hospital settings from the Torres Strait to the Cassowary Coast.
Some doctors have refused to use the program because of its “substantial safety risks” to patients.
Torres and Cape Hospital and Health Service chief executive Beverley Hamerton has previously defended the program, saying her health service was “confident the RIVeR system is fit for purpose as a multidisciplinary primary health care record system” and that it was not compromising patient safety.
But David Bullock, who joined the TCHHS as chief information officer in September 2018, has revealed he resigned as senior responsible officer of RIVeR in 2019 because he did not believe the system would ever achieve its objectives.
In a recent post on LinkedIn, Mr Bullock said he wished to “publicly disassociate myself and my professional standing from this project”.
Mr Bullock said that after 15 months working on the project, “and having provided significant support to resetting the project to a more meaningful and manageable state”, he resigned as senior responsible officer in late 2019.
More than $20 million was spent on the program before the original successful tenderer, ISA Healthcare Solutions, was ditched by Queensland Health.
“Reasons for my resignation were many, inclusive of but not limited to, my belief that having conducted a reset, the project was no longer in a position to achieve its original objectives, and any continuation without additional funds would be akin to ‘making something fit’,” he wrote.
Mr Bullock said his advice to Queensland Health was twofold: firstly, to return the funds to the Federal Government, go back to the start, and “win the right and necessary resources”, and secondly, to go out to open tender to find which, if any company “could provide a clinically safe, efficient and effective system within the project scope”.
“The path followed did not align with my personal values and standards, thus I resigned.
“The TCHHS digital support teams continue to achieve amazing outcomes in trying and difficult environments and (they) along with TCHHS clinicians and patients deserve a system which is contemporary, clinically safe and usable at point (of) implementation,” he said.
The RIVeR system was eventually rolled out in partnership with Telstra Health and its Communicare platform.
Ms Hamerton said “significant progress” had occurred with RIVeR since the partnership with Telstra Health began in 2019.
More here:
Is anyone on the ground able to clarify just how the project is going and what the real issues, if any, are?
Sounds like two versions of an alternate and competing reality are active to me!
David.
When will they ever learn?
ReplyDeleteThe following comment says it all:
"The RIVeR system was eventually rolled out in partnership with Telstra Health and its Communicare platform."
Yet again a case of weak leadership and poor governance. If we cannot fix this by putting proper programme controls in place poor discussion makers will continue to thrive in the shadows and these sorts of things will continue.
ReplyDeleteTalking about poor governance - and a blatant disregard for the law:
ReplyDeleteGovt delays reports on COVIDSafe effectiveness 15 months after app release
Canberra Times
Sarah Basford Canales
The federal government has delayed the release of a report detailing the effectiveness of the $8 million app it delivered in the early days of the Covid pandemic.
The findings of the report are yet to be published, as the Health Department also withholds critical details in documents released through freedom-of-information rules.
It added the report was to be "laid before Parliament within 15 sitting days" after its completion.
A copy was released to The Canberra Times on Tuesday afternoon under a freedom-of-information request, but references to the findings and evaluation of the app have been heavily redacted.
The evaluation was conducted over 11 weeks from September 2020 and included interviews with state and territory contact-tracing officials along with staff from the Health Department and Digital Transformation Agency, according to additional documents released under the request.
However, the majority of the report's findings have been redacted, citing trade secrets and deliberative matters
When Scottie from Marketing and his merry band of Catberts and ratberts get together there is no retraction to big or shameful. Clearly the report is damping or they would publish it.
ReplyDeleteI am not convinced $8m is the true cost, how much internal costs across government were used?