The Queensland Department of Health has rejected claims by an insider that there are major budget overruns in its integrated electronic medical record (ieMR) project and has defended the four-stage release strategy for the system, which is seeing one hospital pay $175,000 a month for medical record and document scanning.
A Queensland Health source has told Pulse+IT that while the project was on track as recently as August 2014 to deliver the ieMR for approximately $190 million to seven hospital and health services – involving nine hospitals in total – the former Newman government's statewide ICT renewal program had disrupted the plans, with senior staff involved in the roll-out leaving the Health Services Information Agency (HSIA) and the establishment of a new Chief Health Information Office separate from HSIA causing further disruption.
