Multimillion-dollar Queensland Health IT project ‘discontinued’

A multimillion-dollar Queensland Health IT project has been “discontinued” with the department blaming COVID-19.

QUEENSLAND Health has quietly ended a 10-year, $68.5 million project to replace its ageing laboratory information system, blaming the coronavirus pandemic.

Buried in the middle of an April 8 media release detailing COVID-19 infection numbers in Queensland, the department announced the state’s Laboratory Information System Project had been discontinued.

“Queensland Health has changed the scope of some projects to free up resources,” the department said.

“This will include pausing the Queensland Health Climate Change Strategy, delaying the Rapid Results Program, pausing work on the Medicines and Poisons Framework and discontinuing the Laboratory Information System Project to ensure pathology services are not disrupted during the outbreak.”

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Qld Health Director-General Dr John Wakefield. Photo: John Gass, AAP.

In early 2018, Queensland Health handed US company Sunquest Information Systems a $68.5 million contract to replace the state’s laboratory information system over 10 years.

The department said in a statement to The Courier-Mail this week the finalised contract close-out was being settled.

“But while more than half of the project’s $64 million budget has been expended, Queensland Health will retain much of the work developed so far, and a portion of the overall budget will be saved and available to reinvest,” the department said.

The collapse of the project comes a decade after Queensland Health’s payroll fiasco.

In 2012, the Queensland Health pathology information system AUSLAB was listed in a Queensland Government ICT Audit as among the top 15 high-risk systems still operating in the state’s public sector.

AUSLAB is now more than 20 years old.

The Queensland Health statement said the future of Pathology Queensland’s laboratory information system was under review when COVID-19 emerged.

It said Director-General John Wakefield had made the decision to discontinue the laboratory information system project to allow Queensland Health to focus on the COVID-19 pandemic response.

“The outbreak has shown us that pathology testing could remain a top priority for up to two years,” the department said. “Our people need to be focused on testing and ensuring our existing systems are as robust as possible.

“Good governance requires continual reappraisal of our projects and a focus on key activity.”

But The Courier-Mail understands Pathology Queensland staff were pulled from the Sunquest project late last year before the coronavirus pandemic.

In the April 8 Queensland Health media release, Dr Wakefield, who has been Director-General since September last year, said the coronavirus pandemic was “forcing health administrators all over the world to rethink the way organisations are resourced”.

“Maintaining the health and wellbeing of our workforce, including relieving the pressure of staff having to continue non-critical business as usual activities, is critical to the way we respond to this crisis,” he said.

He did not explain why, two years into the deal to replace AUSLAB with a Sunquest software system, a decision had been taken to discontinue the project altogether.

After being named vendor of choice from a field of seven vendors, ahead of the main contract, Sunquest was required to create a working prototype that would be interoperable with other Queensland Health clinical systems, including its controversial Cerner integrated electronic medical record.

Queensland Health said support for AUSLAB had been extended to 2029.