SA Health

The Hon. C. BONAROS (15:10): Supplementary: can the minister confirm whether he is also aware that similar coding issues may apply in relation to EPAS or Sunrise and their compliance with the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care's mandate that electronic management records (EMRs) should include indication coding and not just diagnosis in medication orders and that this could also lead to significant shortfalls in diagnosis-related group (DRG) commonwealth funding?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:11): I thank the honourable member for her supplementary question. I will certainly refer her question to the health management because I am keen to follow up every opportunity to make sure that we secure the resources we need to deliver health care. In terms of the general point about whether there are problems elsewhere, I have had an opportunity to speak to health executives earlier today, and they confirmed that they believe there may well be lessons to be learned in other local health networks.

We hold all the local boards and management responsible to make sure that they learn from one another. This initiative in CALHN will be closely looked at by other agencies. I should come back to your comments about Sunrise. The reality is that the recovery going forward, to stop the $54 million loss of revenue through incorrect coding, will be substantially assisted by the rollout of Sunrise. The first task of the data integrity unit that was formed in April was focused on working to correct the errors that had been identified. My understanding is that they were very successful in that task.

Their focus going forward will also look at rolling out targeted education through CALHN and trying to use the electronic patient records, particularly Sunrise, to support better coding. If there is indication coding and the like that the honourable member refers to, I will certainly look at the capacity of Sunrise in that regard. Of course, Sunrise is still going through an acceptability test; in other words, the government has accepted the report of an independent review that says to roll it out at two further sites and then assess its acceptability.

I think it is noteworthy that Sunrise was rolled out at the Mount Gambier hospital last week. The fact that it has not been a matter for public comment suggests to me that it has been highly successful, but I look forward to further reports about not only the rollout at that site but also the feedback on the service going forward. The honourable member is quite right to highlight that good patient record systems support good revenue management.