SA Health is offering $90,000 for a spin doctor to sell its EPAS electronic patient record project

SA Health is offering more than $90,000 for a spin doctor for six months promoting its controversial EPAS electronic health records system, which critics say is so flawed it should be abandoned.

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SA HEALTH is offering more than $90,000 for six months for a spin doctor to convince the media and public its controversial electronic records program EPAS is a good plan.

The Enterprise Patient Administration System project has attracted a barrage of criticism from clinicians, is years behind schedule and its budget has blown out by more than $200 million to $422 million.

The lucrative contract for a public relations guru to sell it as a good idea comes as the State Government closes the Repat, downgrades Modbury Hospital’s ED and winds back services at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital including cardiac services, citing budget problems.

A key “challenge” for candidates is to “manage external media” while trying to promote EPAS as a positive project, the job specification states. Critics say the system is so flawed it should be abandoned.

EPAS is due to start at the QEH on June 29 and is now in service at Noarlunga, the Repat and Port Augusta hospitals.

Repat doctors last year wrote a formal complaint stating that EPAS had cut clinical activity by 50 per cent, while in March, The Advertiser revealed Port Augusta doctors wrote a letter listing 37 major flaws and literally pleaded for it to be abandoned.

Senior clinicians at Noarlunga Hospital where it was first introduced in August 2013 now praise the system after multiple upgrades and extensive staff training in its use.

Director of Noarlunga Hospital emergency department Dr Jim Holland with registered nurse Kerrie Searle checking a mobile EPAS screen, with SA Health Chief Medical Officer Professor Paddy Phillips in the background. Picture: Brad Crouch

However, SA Salaried Medical Officers Association industrial officer Bernadette Mulholland said other ED clinicians at Noarlunga continue to cite problems.

“We have a number of concerns about the EPAS introduction at the QEH — we continue to hear it is very difficult to use in an ED and clinicians are frustrated with it,” she said.

“If it does not work properly at the QEH then SA Health really has to reconsider using it as the new Royal Adelaide Hospital.”

The new Royal Adelaide Hospital has not been designed to house paper records and when it eventually opens initially will run on a hybrid paper-EPAS system with most paper records stored off-site as ward floors cannot bear the weight.

The EPAS Communications Advisor role, paying up to $91,181 for a temporary fulltime position until January 20, 2017, will involve “planning and managing special events such as launches, media announcements and community workshops,” the job criteria state.

Meanwhile, The Advertiser can reveal activity at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital will be drastically wound down ahead of the introduction of EPAS later this month.

Outpatient clinics will be postponed, elective surgery will not be scheduled and ambulances carrying non-urgent cases are expected to be diverted elsewhere.

SA Health chief medical officer Professor Paddy Phillips said: “We are now going through the issues about reducing activity because we don’t want to add any extra stress to staff as they deal with the new system.”