I thought it might be a good plan to return to the SA Careconnect Program to see how it was all progressing.
My interest was sparked by the recent announcement of a significant reduction in funding for e-Health. Here is the report that I posted a day or so ago.
SA takes $40 million from health IT
Suzanne Tindal, ZDNet.com.au
09 June 2009 04:39 PM
The South Australian State Government has cut back on new e-health projects in its budget delivered last week, slashing new initiatives worth $42 million over four years.
Despite spending over $4 billion in total on health, the state decided to cut back on new IT for the sector. The budget papers noted a reduction in an "ICT infrastructure program", which would save $9.2 million in the 2009/2010 years and $10.9 million, $11.3 million and $10.6 million in the three years after that.
A spokesperson for the state's health department could not give any information on the cancelled project, although they confirmed the money had been pulled out. The state's budget ran into deficit, and the government said it had needed to make some hard calls to bring it back into surplus in the future.
"When I first began to frame this budget we faced the prospect of an operating deficit well in excess of $500 million and significant deficits in each of the following years. Mr Speaker, this would not be sustainable, and as a result the government has made some tough decisions which I will detail later in order to place this state on a path to surplus," SA Treasurer Kevin Foley said in his budget speech.
More here:
On visiting the Careconnect front page one sees the following:
See here:
http://www.careconnect.sa.gov.au/Default.aspx?tabid=1
careconnect.sa
South Australia is developing Australia’s first fully integrated statewide electronic health record system through its careconnect.sa program.
As part of the State Government’s health reform agenda, careconnect.sa will improve communications for patients, doctors, nurses, midwives and other health care professionals within the public health system by streamlining and interconnecting information systems.
The careconnect.sa program comprises 65 interrelated information technology projects that will be implemented by 2017. These are expected to improve the quality and safety of health care in South Australia and, as a consequence, improve efficiencies across the health system.
careconnect.sa aims to provide consolidated and standarised patient information electronically across the public health system so that it is available at the point of care.
careconnect.sa will improve the coordination of health care services due to the increased accuracy and timeliness of patient information.
careconnect.sa will store information in a secure and protected manner within the SA public health care sector.”
This hardly fills one with confidence!
Anxiety increases when one goes to the CareConnect achievement page here:
http://www.careconnect.sa.gov.au/Default.aspx?tabid=49
Here you read of awards from 2000 and 2003
Details in the budget were as follows:
Page 244 of Portfolio Papers:
Information and Communication Technology — new and enhanced information systems.
This year $890,000 (2009/10)
Last year $6,970,000 (2008/09)
Information and Communication Technology Minor Projects
This year $0.00
Last year $890,000 down from $4, 172,000 in 2007/08
Information Technology Projects SA Ambulance Service
This year $0.00
Last year $410,000 which was up from $189,000 in 2007/08
Moreover what we see for health overall is here:
Page 40 of the Budget Statement.
Health
The 2009-10 Budget provides for substantial new expenditure of $546.1 million over four years in the Health portfolio.
The budget provides $200.0 million over four years funded by the Commonwealth Government’s Health and Hospitals Fund to build a new Health and Medical Research Institute adjacent to the new Royal Adelaide Hospital. The institute’s research will foster innovation and improvements in health services, leading to improved health outcomes for the community.
The budget also provides $114.2 million over four years to further improve and increase health services across the state. A further $26.2 million is provided to the Health portfolio in 2008-09 for the same purpose. This support will provide the Health portfolio with the capacity to meet volume growth in health service activity. This is in addition to the $297.1 million provided over four years in the 2008-09 Budget.
The budget includes resources for implementing emergency department service delivery reforms, to improve access, patient flow and public health awareness campaigns.
The budget also includes a package of health and social change initiatives for indigenous groups including increased access to culturally responsive primary health care and hospital related services, establishing Child and Mental Health Services on the APY lands, increased education programs and access to health promotion services and providing a program aimed at reducing smoking.
Additional resources are also provided for building a valued and sustainable nursing and midwives workforce through additional staff backfill, in order to implement career structure changes and improve hospital ward services and patient outcomes.
The budget provides support for improving and increasing sub-acute care in the community including expanded home based rehabilitation, developing a community pharmacy network and expanded palliative care teams.
The budget includes $6.0 million in 2010-11 to the Royal Flying Doctor Service to contribute towards the purchase of new aircraft.
The budget also enables SA Ambulance Service to continue enhancing the delivery of ambulance services.
The 2008-09 Budget included a savings target of $8.1 million in 2009-10 for the Health portfolio, which will be achieved through the reform of the practices and processes used by the portfolio to procure supplies. This is shown as a memorandum item in the following table.”
The line that matters is here:
ICT infrastructure program — reduction(a)
2009/10 - $9,200,000
2010/11 - $10,900,000
2011/12 - $11,300,000
2012/13 - $10,600,000
The total is well over $40 million
Essentially what we have here is the sort of political junk that totally fails to understand the place of ICT in health services delivery.
There is all this stuff about new aircraft and buildings – but nothing about how to make the whole system sustainable into the future.
Since the decade long program was to cost $375m over 10 years – we can see the delivery date will now be 2020 or so!
SA clearly has a dill for a Health Minister who does not understand how Health IT facilitates Health System sustainability. President Obama does!
See here:
Intermountain, Geisinger share the spotlight in Obama talk
June 12, 2009 | Bernie Monegain, Editor
GREEN BAY, WI – President Barack Obama on Thursday turned the spotlight on healthcare IT leaders Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City and Geisinger Health in rural Philadlephia.
Full article here:
http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/intermountain-geisinger-share-spotlight-obama-talk
If I was the CIO I would be job hunting starting from budget night!
David.
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