Enterprise Patient Administration System

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:36): My question again is to the Minister for Health. What is the projected cost of paper storage and retrieval of patient records for the new Royal Adelaide Hospital pending the full rollout of EPAS?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:36): I am happy to get that information when and if it is available. Let's be quite clear: the mixed system will only be for a period of time, only a matter of months while we continue to use paper records. The reason we are doing that is because, while EPAS is ready to be rolled out in full at the new Royal Adelaide Hospital, as I have said repeatedly in this house before, we want to make the move as simple for our clinicians as is possible.

We don't want them having to deal with the new complex IT system at the same time as they are adjusting to a new environment in the new hospital. The advice was very, very clear—that we should make the move as simple as possible and the safest way to achieve this was by having a limited activation of EPAS at the new Royal Adelaide Hospital when we move and then to proceed to full implementation or full activation of EPAS some time after.

The issues with paper records, we have been working through with our clinicians to make sure that they have paper records provided to them in a timely way when they need them, particularly in the emergency department. Let me be quite clear: we have paper records being shuffled around the state all the time; that is why we are moving to an electronic health record so that that does not happen. I find it a little bizarre that the opposition, who have been condemning EPAS and expressing a love or nostalgia for old paper-based records, are now complaining that we are going to have paper-based records for a limited period of time at the new Royal Adelaide Hospital.