Mr CONLAN - 2016-05-24
Can you please update the House on the government’s plan to develop and improve health infrastructure right across the Territory?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, once again, as the Health minister, I am pleased to report that we, as a Health department, are doing very well, and as a government.
This is the biggest Health budget in the Territory’s history, now exceeding $1.5bn, and that means we continue to improve the services we are bringing to the people of the Northern Territory. That includes the $64m being spent on the Royal Darwin Hospital, such as on the refurbishment of the paediatric wards, upgrades and additions to two negative isolation pressure rooms worth $6.4m, new allied health clinics, refurbishment of outpatient clinics, new eye and pre-admission clinics worth $40m and a front entrance foyer worth about $13.6m.
I have a longer list in front of me but I want to pause briefly to speak about the core clinical systems review. I noted during the Treasurer’s speech today that he talked about the enormous project this is. This will be the largest single ITC undertaking in the Northern Territory’s history. At $186m over the next five years, we are making a commitment to take what is essentially a weak mainframe system with other associated databases attached and turn it into the finest medical health records system in the country. That is something other jurisdictions will look at with jealous eyes.
Core clinical systems throughout the country are developing inherent weaknesses. The truth is the support systems for the clinical systems we have at the moment will be expiring in the not-so-distant future, and, frankly, they are written in the computer equivalent of Sanskrit. To talk to the people who did the original programming, I suspect you would need a Ouija board.
We have decided to bite the bullet and change the core clinical system to not only bring it up to scratch and up to speed, but to make it the finest damn system in the country. It will be effective in bringing about the best possible health outcomes so a person from Docker River who receives treatment there can walk into the Royal Darwin Hospital and have their treatment records immediately available. Imagine being in Galiwinku and able to look at someone’s X-rays taken in Darwin. Those are the things we are aiming for in our core clinic system review, which will mean we will have the benchmark medical record system in this country.
As the Health minister, I am proud of that. It is always frustrating to make an announcement and not be able to stand in front of something, as is predictably the case with software, but the truth is it will be the benchmark and the rest of the country will be jealous.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, once again, as the Health minister, I am pleased to report that we, as a Health department, are doing very well, and as a government.
This is the biggest Health budget in the Territory’s history, now exceeding $1.5bn, and that means we continue to improve the services we are bringing to the people of the Northern Territory. That includes the $64m being spent on the Royal Darwin Hospital, such as on the refurbishment of the paediatric wards, upgrades and additions to two negative isolation pressure rooms worth $6.4m, new allied health clinics, refurbishment of outpatient clinics, new eye and pre-admission clinics worth $40m and a front entrance foyer worth about $13.6m.
I have a longer list in front of me but I want to pause briefly to speak about the core clinical systems review. I noted during the Treasurer’s speech today that he talked about the enormous project this is. This will be the largest single ITC undertaking in the Northern Territory’s history. At $186m over the next five years, we are making a commitment to take what is essentially a weak mainframe system with other associated databases attached and turn it into the finest medical health records system in the country. That is something other jurisdictions will look at with jealous eyes.
Core clinical systems throughout the country are developing inherent weaknesses. The truth is the support systems for the clinical systems we have at the moment will be expiring in the not-so-distant future, and, frankly, they are written in the computer equivalent of Sanskrit. To talk to the people who did the original programming, I suspect you would need a Ouija board.
We have decided to bite the bullet and change the core clinical system to not only bring it up to scratch and up to speed, but to make it the finest damn system in the country. It will be effective in bringing about the best possible health outcomes so a person from Docker River who receives treatment there can walk into the Royal Darwin Hospital and have their treatment records immediately available. Imagine being in Galiwinku and able to look at someone’s X-rays taken in Darwin. Those are the things we are aiming for in our core clinic system review, which will mean we will have the benchmark medical record system in this country.
As the Health minister, I am proud of that. It is always frustrating to make an announcement and not be able to stand in front of something, as is predictably the case with software, but the truth is it will be the benchmark and the rest of the country will be jealous.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016