House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-11-11 Daily Xml

Contents

Enterprise Patient Administration System

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:25): My question is to the health minister. Can the minister inform the house how much the EPAS system is impacting upon hospital activity levels at the Repatriation General Hospital?

The Hon. J.J. SNELLING (Playford—Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Health Industries) (14:25): I am more than happy to get a report. There certainly have been some issues, particularly with outpatients, in the Repatriation Hospital. Any new IT system, no matter where it's rolled out—whether it is the government or private sector—always has its teething problems, and the EPAS is absolutely no different.

What I can inform the house of is that I think literally thousands of alerts have been fired through the EPAS system where otherwise an error would have been made with regard to the administration of medication to patients, and EPAS has been able to pick that up. I think it is literally thousands of times that EPAS has been able to pick up when a doctor or nurse has prescribed or given medication which would have conflicted with other medication that the patient was on. For some clinical reason they should not have been given it and EPAS has picked that up.

Whatever teething problems there might be with EPAS, the simple fact is that it has had a significant impact on good quality care for South Australians. Compare that to the opposition, who had nothing to say about health policy at the last election, who had to be called out on it by the leader of the nurses federation, Elizabeth Dabars.

The SPEAKER: The minister will be seated. He is not responsible to the house for the opposition. Leader.