IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The new eHealth NSW agency will be made up of fragments of the NSW Department of Health and Health Support Services to deliver a "whole-of-NSW Health" approach to e-health delivery.

"In NSW, the current ICT governance model can be regarded as a 'half-way house', with staff and functions spread between the department, which has a strategic role, Health Support Services, which is responsible for rolling out major corporate and clinical systems and Area Health Service-based ICT services," the government said in its report into agency governance released yesterday (PDF).

NSW Government executive managers are to be offered coaching in high-level ICT and contract management after an internal assessment revealed some capability weaknesses.

Some 337 executives participated in a senior executive service (SES) executive development program that is being spearheaded by the NSW Public Service Commission.

It’s never been a very transparent strategy — and the previous Labor Government in NSW definitely didn’t enjoy answering questions on the matter — but for several years now the state has focused on delivering IT services to a number of agencies through several shared services divisions, including ServiceFirst, which was quietly created from the mergers of a number of agencies in 2008, BusinessLink and one or two others.

Speaking at the CeBIT 2011 eHealth conference yesterday, Dr Ian Rodgers, director of the NSW e-health strategy branch, said that the second phase of the state's e-health plan is currently being mulled over by the parliament.

Phase two, according to Rodgers, is set to expand the use of the EMR program in NSW to intensive care units, paediatric units and local clinics.

The New South Wales Department of Finance and Services is undergoing a reassessment of its information systems security for its shared services division, ServiceFirst, replacing its existing firewalls and looking for a contractor to implement new ones.

According to a request for tender document issued by shared services department ServiceFirst — which provides a range of services to a number of departments and agencies throughout the State Government — much of the state’s enterprise storage capacity is currently hosted in two ServiceFirst datacentres — the massive Global Switch facility in the Sydney suburb of Ultimo, and the new Metronode government datacentre at the Illawarra suburb of Unanderra. Hardware platforms from HP, Netapp and Hitachi are used.

The Government today responded to findings of a Commission of Audit it established in mid-2011 to improve public sector management and governance (pdf).

Audit documents (pdf), released today, included 132 recommendations, including that ICT procurement practices be reviewed and improved to support government priorities.

The NSW Government will be making changes to its ICT procurement process, following recommendations from the Commission of Audit.

In a report released last week, the Commission looked at NSW's overall spending, making 132 recommendations, of which a handful were ICT-related.

The headline figure is $171m for the introduction of a statewide electronic medication management system, but the project will run over nine years to 2020 and $11m has been allocated in the first year.

More than $85m has been set aside to roll out an electronic medical record system to clinical specialists by 2018, with only $5m on the table this year.

NSW Health has revealed plans to accredit the state’s rollout of electronic medical records in an attempt to better track its progress and strengthen its case for funding.

The department had informally used a US e-health record adoption model in business plans submitted to state Treasury during the past year.

Chief information officer Greg Wells said it hoped to gain accreditation with the model’s developer, the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).

The National e-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) has confirmed NSW Health will implement a medical supply and inventory system some nine months after it was trialled in the ACT.

The Master Catalogue Information Service (MCIS) aims to provide a national uniform set of data around medication. It will assist different health departments and jurisdictions automate validation, integration and synchronisation of the National Product Catalogue (NPC) data (published by suppliers), with the departments’ internal systems.

The NSW Opposition has committed to canning the State Government’s FirstNet computer system in hospital emergency departments if improvements to the troubled system cannot be made.

According to shadow health minister, Jillian Skinner, the state’s Labor government was ignoring risks to patients caused by the system and as highlighted by medical specialists. "If clinicians are saying this system is putting lives at risk, then we need to halt the roll-out and sit down with frontline health workers and find out how to make it work," Skinner said in a statement.

NSW Health Minister Jillian Skinner has revealed the creation of a new agency called eHealth NSW to look after IT services across the state's healthcare system.

The Government said today that ICT statewide services would become eHealth NSW, a "separate administrative unit within the Health Administration Corporation".

Previously, ICT came under the remit of a broad shared services division called Health Support Services.

The NSW Government will ditch its ownership model for storage infrastructure in favour of an as-a-service approach, in line with plans to move away from asset ownership under its ICT Strategy.

The state government plans to appoint an external provider to supply storage services to systems hosted by NSW shared services agency ServiceFirst on a consumption-based pricing model.

Executive in charge of the project, Dr Bev Lloyd and project manager, Dr Debbie Banovic each gave a talk at the Health and Productivity Management Congress 2012 in Sydney regarding the Get Healthy Information and Coaching Service, which aims to deliver services to individuals who call in.

The NSW government’s Smart Western City Program is a finalist in the World Smart City Awards. Victor Dominello

The international awards recognise innovative city strategies and projects designed to make cities more sustainable and inclusive.

This year, judges received 337 proposals from 60 countries.

As part of the government’s ICT Implementation Strategy Plan, the Policy announced at an Open Data Forum in Sydney this week will require state agencies to “start from a position of data openness”.

The move to open data repositories comes as NSW follows similar US and European initiatives that have spawned thousands of new and innovative low cost applications for citizens that range from being alerted to new development applications to plotting the progress of approaching public transport.

Under the new arrangement, the extra categories will let agencies buy products and services from companies registered in the Scheme without the requirement of going to a formal request for tender process, a move many smaller businesses have been strongly agitating for as a more cost effective way of doing business with government.

Technology innovators are being invited to offer suggestions about how Sydney’s emerging ‘third city’, Bradfield, can tap smart city technologies to help the “city for the future” meet its goals around clean energy, digital connectivity, circular economy, and other areas.

After years of planning that will see the new Bradfield City Centre – a 30-hectare patch of the 100-hectare suburb, located just north of Bringelly – positioned as a major commercial centre as part of Western Sydney’s aerotropolis, the newly announced market sounding process sees the NSW Government canvassing technology and service providers for proposals about how to make the new city as future-proof as possible.

The state first publicly confirmed in September last year that it was considering outsourcing key functions of ServiceFirst. Reports have long suggested that the agency could be broken up, as well as fellow shared services group BusinessLink.