ACT Health lands $40m for core IT upgrades

The ACT government has earmarked more than $40 million in this year’s budget to replace several core IT systems at ACT Health.

The government will provide $18 million, including $6.7 million in capital, to replace the existing ACT pathology laboratory information system over four years.

It will be replaced with a new end-to-end cloud-based system that “will support the entire process of pathology services, from ordering and specimen collection through to testing, validation, reporting and billing”, in a bid to improve efficiency and the patient experience.

The government will also put a further $23 million towards replacing two other core health IT systems: the purchasing and inventory control system, and the hospital clinical communication system.

The territory government said it would look to “assess cyber security vulnerabilities for ACT Health and develop a cyber security plan” as part of this initiative.

The government also plans to improve the security and functionality of its cloud-based services more generally and will provide $1.2 million for specialist software, the majority of which will be offset by “the increased take-up of cloud-based services”.

The entire government will shift to the cloud over the next five years to give it the ability to quickly ramp services up and down.

Elsewhere, the ACT government will hand police $5.6 million to provide all officers with new smartphones to “improve the secure capture, transmission and sharing of data and radio communications”, enabling them to spend more time on the beat.

It will also fund a new Supreme Court jury management system to the tune of $1.1 million, with the replacement to offer “an improved range of functions, including the collection of penalties from potential jurors who fail to attend jury service”.

The Community Services Directorate will receive $2.7 million to “expand the scope” of its new child and youth protection services client management system, which will replace a legacy client management system.

This will allow the system “to integrate with key stakeholders, enabling real-time exchange of risk, safety and well-being information about children and young people.

The government will also fund a number of digital platforms, building on the ACT Digital Account and iConnect program.

This includes $2.1 million for a digital platform that allows Housing ACT clients to access essential services and $2.05 million for a customer-centric online platform to streamline the application process for registering a new business

Other measures funded in the budget for 2018-19 over forward estimates include:

• $9.75 million to establish a ‘priority investment program’ that supports growth and innovation in key sectors, including cyber security and e-government.
• $4.7 million to reform the CTP insurance scheme, including for a new IT system.
• $4.1 million to complete the rollout of digital record-keeping systems across agencies.
• $916,000 for specialised debit management software to streamline government debt management practices.
• $586,000 to upgrade the Territory’s electronic voting and counting system for future elections.
• $557,000 for the ACT Human Rights Commission to replace a number of IT systems with single case management system.
• $404,000 to participate in the national facial biometric matching service capability.
• $460,000 towards the design of a customer-centric services digital platform in a bid to increase customer satisfaction with the delivery of suburban services.
• $374,000 for the Legislative Assembly to develop a future digitisation plan and $189,000 to support a transition to digital committee activity.
• $280,000 to continue smart parking services in the Manuka shopping precinct.
• $120,000 to expand free public wi-fi in town centres and other key public places in 2018-19, with an undisclosed amount of funding provisioned in later years but pending commercial discussions.