[LINK] SA Health gets bio smartcard

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

SA Health gets bio smartcard
Ben Woodhead
July 03, 2007
Australian IT
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,22005021-15306,00.html

The South Australian Department of Health will lock down its patient information systems with smartcards and biometric technology as part of a 10-year, $375 million computing and communications overhaul.

The department is likely to award contracts for the first major component of the initiative as early as August as it works towards building an integrated information technology platform for the state's public hospitals and community clinics.

SA Department of Health chief information officer David Johnston said the core objective of the 10-year strategy was to streamline access to crucial patient and medical information by making systems available online.

"The broader strategy is to web-enable as many applications as possible using an open-standards, open-systems philosophy," Mr Johnston said.

"Using portal technology and combined biometric and smartcard authentication, users will be able to access integrated information that may reside in multiple transaction systems."

To achieve the goals of the undertaking, which will be dubbed careconnect.sa, the department will complete 65 projects priced between $250,000 and $70 million.

Mr Johnston said most of the projects fell in the $5 million to $30 million range, but he declined to reveal individual budgets.

"We aren't going to release the budgets for individual projects as that would severely compromise our commercial position," Mr Johnston said.

"It ranges from minor projects such as rolling out a common helpdesk and technical knowledge management system through to creating major state-based hospital systems for areas such as nursing, patient administration and operating theatres."

Projects that will get under way in the first year of the multi-year program include patient administration and nursing administration system installations that were flagged in the 2007-08 South Australian budget.

Other projects slated for year one include client identification, web services, pharmacy management and operating room information system upgrades.

Work done in the lead up to the South Australian Government providing full funding for the ambitious initiative meant that the department could be in a position to commence the nursing system set-up as early as August, Mr Johnston said.

"We are expecting to announce the successful bidder in August, with implementation starting immediately. It should take around 18 months to get the first 14 hospitals done, and we're looking at the timing for the rest of the rural rollout," he said.

The department will also seek Cabinet approval for a patient administration system tender as soon as November.

It is expected to be late next year, however, before a contract is awarded and a system rollout gets under way.

"We are aiming to come out to tender for a systems integrator by January 2008," Mr Johnston said.

"We expect to be out to the market by about August 2008 with a software tender, then selection will be by October and implementation is expected to commence by November.

"Depending on the final solution, the implementation could range from three to four years up to six to seven years for the full state rollout."

-- 
Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Sydney Australia
brd at iimetro.com.au