A strategy to replace Ascribe's Symphony emergency department system at four health services in Victoria is one of the top priorities for the state's Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) for the coming year, but under its Digitising Health strategy released this month, the department will continue in its role as a 'health system manager' overseeing a devolved healthcare sector rather than implement a centralised investment approach similar to that of NSW and Queensland.

Unlike the ambitious but ultimately failed HealthSmart program, in which a a top-down approach was taken to rolling out a number of technologies such as the Cerner electronic medical record and the iPM patient administration system from CSC, the strategy continues with the devolved approach to decision making recommended by a ministerial review panel in the Clinical ICT Systems in the Victorian Public Health Sector report in 2013.