IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The Northern Territory Department of Health and Families (DHF) has implemented an enterprise grade e-health integration hub across its entire jurisdiction.

The hub, provided by InterSystems, will allow connected healthcare applications in the Northern Territory to utilise clinical data from other systems and provide a single point of integration for each application with an architecture that simplifies the task of creating and maintaining interfaces.

Northern Territory Health chief information officer Stephen Moo said the aim was to create a robust hub to handle growing volumes of clinical messaging and resolve interoperability issues.

"We've got critical mass in e-health adoption by our clinical community, they're becoming reliant on it and we need a high-calibre service," Mr Moo said.

The Northern Territory has allocated $6.6 million toward telehealth services at 17 remote towns in the territory, marking its first financial contribution since the initiative was announced a year ago.

The allocation, announced in the 2011/2012 budget released this week, will form part of a $16.4 million funding package over three years to establish video conferencing sites, telehealth capabilities and e-learning capabilities for students at 17 of 20 towns marked as growth sites by the territory government.

The e-Health Enterprise Integration Hub being implemented by InterSystems and DWS Advanced Business Solutions will build on the territory's existing secure messaging delivery system that was aligned with the standards proposed by the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA). The system will be able to use individual health identifiers, personally controlled e-health records (PCEHR) and the National Authentication Service for Health.

Darwin City Council has resolved to implement privacy and security best practice in the gathering, storage and analysis of data collected through its smart technology.

Lord Mayor Kon Vatskalis said “The framework Council has agreed to establish will provide an overarching guide to the management of data gathered through our smart technologies and address data privacy, ethics and security.”

"We are having trouble," said Gus Hunter, an ear nose and throat surgeon at Royal Darwin Hospital as he tried to show off a virtual consultation.

"It was working when we tried it yesterday," he added, as he struggled to hear what his patient, about 1000 kilometres away in Nhulunbuy, was saying.

In NSW Treasurer Mike Baird's first budget, he revealed that the state would this year see a $718 million deficit, with a projection for the budget to swing back to surplus in 2012-13.

The Department of Health will commence the delivery of major eHealth projects, including the $170 million electronic medication management program. CSC national director for health services Lisa Pettigrew welcomed the news, stating that "it is heartening to see eHealth as a recognised, crucial enabler to a modern, safe and quality healthcare system."

Businesslink provides shared services such as IT and finance to a variety of state departments.

In a letter obtained by The Australian, NSW Minister for Family and Community Services Pru Goward explained the move to her department's director-general, Jim Moore.

Metronode's Unanderra datacenter has now been officially recognised as one of New South Wales' pieces of critical ICT infrastructure with the state minister unveiling the 10-year-leased facility today.

The state has been working since 2008 at consolidating its datacentres into two Sydney-based facilities in Silverwater and Unanderra.

It is part of a major restructure for NSW Health announced by Health Minister Jillian Skinner today that will slash 300 head office and middle-management roles to "free up more than $80 million” for frontline services.

Ms Skinner said eHealth NSW would drive innovation, improve implementation of "vital” e-health initiatives, and provide IT support to facilities across the state.

The NSW government has moved to restructure the Department of Health and has established a new agency, eHealth NSW, to reflect the growing role of technology in health provision.

According to NSW health minister, Jillian Skinner, the agency will drive innovation, improve implementation of electronic health initiatives and provide support to the local health Districts and their facilities.

ICT Minister Greg Pearce released the official government ICT strategy, which has been developed in tandem with the state's various new ICT working groups and advisory panels.

The government spends over $2 billion a year on ICT, and the key to the strategy's success, according to Michael Coutts-Trotter, director-general of NSW Department of Finance and Services, will be to make sure it works as a business plan rather than an ICT shopping list.

The project, revealed as part of the O’Farrell Government’s first Budget which was handed down today, represents 1 per cent of the Government’s overall $17.3 billion budget for healthcare. However at this stage there are no further details available regarding what the project will involve or how it might be rolled out.

Medication management remains a vexed issue both for the aged care and hospital sectors where staff are often challenged to properly manage dosage control and understand the contra indications that might arise for patients prescribed multiple medications.

NSW government departments and agencies will need to pick up their collective game if they are to make the most of sparse ICT funding allocated under the new handed down this week.

That's the view of Kevin Noonan, research director, public sector at Ovum, who said that despite the lower spend on ICT under the 2012-13 budget, it wasn't not all doom and gloom because ICT budgets announcements from previous years are expected to still flow into projects in the new financial year.

The NSW Government is encouraging the ICT industry to have a say on its plan to deliver better services through ICT usage and procurement.

Public consultation on the NSW Government ICT Strategy implementation update for 2013 has begun, through the Government’s Have Your Say website.

The NSW Government will overhaul its primary ICT services contract processes to make it easier for companies to do business with the government.

The NSW Government ICT Services Scheme will incorporate a two-tier supplier listing split into The Registered Supplier list for low risk contracts valued up to $150,000 and an Advanced Registered Supplier list for high risk contracts valued more than $150,000.

This will be the task of the NSW Department of Finance and Services which has also been set a deadline of Q4 2013 to “Establish a standard information architecture approach for use across government.” The NSW government’s annual ICT budget is around $A2 billion.

The NSW Government ICT Strategy 2012, also discusses introduction of more mobile applications, opening up delivery of government data in realtime, and development of a private cloud.

The Australian Information Industry Association has welcomed a directive from the NSW Government that will enable suppliers to commercialise ICT systems they create for the state.

NSW Minister for Finance and Services Greg Pearce unveiled the changes last week, which include a directive that contracts between agencies and suppliers comply with version three of the Procure IT Framework (pdf).

The NSW Government is opening an industry consultation process as part of the first annual review of its ICT strategy, launched in March last year.

Minister for Finance and Services, Greg Pearce, today opened three lines of inquiry into the strategy via the state's Have Your Say consultative platform.

Industry inputs will be taken into account as the Government prepares its ICT strategy implementation update for 2013.

As part of the reforms to the NSW government's ICT policies, it has reminded industry that its ICT Services Scheme will replace the existing Services Panel.

The ICT Services Panel was originally set up in 2009 and consisted of a number of companies that had been pre-approved by the state government for ICT projects. In its current form, it will expire on February 28, leading to the implementation of the new ICT Services Scheme on March 1.