House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-10-30 Daily Xml

Contents

ENTERPRISE PATIENT ADMINISTRATION SYSTEM

Mr MARSHALL (Norwood—Leader of the Opposition) (14:37): My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Can the minister confirm that the total rollout of the Enterprise Patient Administration System (EPAS) will not occur until late 2015, about 18 months after the initially promised rollout date of June 2014?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health and Ageing, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for Defence Industries, Minister for Veterans' Affairs) (14:38): I answered this question yesterday during the questions on the Auditor-General. My recollection is the rollout time frame is about two years away before the initial scope is completed. I don't know what indications have been given by my predecessor about when it would finish. I would have to check what comments he made to determine whether that statement is correct or not, but what I can inform the house is that we have rolled out EPAS to the first site (the Noarlunga site). My advice from my department is that that has gone extraordinarily well.

The rollout of any infrastructure, any IT project, is notoriously difficult. It is not only governments that have difficulties often with IT projects; the private sector, any of the large banks that have had to roll out new IT infrastructure have often encountered difficulties. I am happy to report to the house that so far the rollout of EPAS at the first site at Noarlunga has gone very well. We are undertaking a gateway review by external consultants who are looking at the Noarlunga rollout to determine how that has gone and what lessons can be learnt before we proceed with the next site. However, I expect that the rollout for the next site, which will be the Repatriation General Hospital, will begin before the completion of the year.