E-Health, Gershon face progress audit

The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) has flagged possible audits into the Federal Government's progress on e-health and the implementation of the Gershon Review recommendations.

The Australian National Audit Office has flagged possible audits into e-health implementation and the Gershon Review.(Stack of books image by Horia Varlan, CC2.0)

The office's 2010/11 work report, released today, contains over 130 pages of current and proposed government audits.

It mentions a possible audit of the Department of Health and Ageing's national e-health implementation scheme to investigate management and co-ordination strategies used in deploying e-health in Australia.

In the 20010/11 budget, the Rudd Government made a hefty financial commitment to the implementation of e-health records in Australia, allocating $466.6 million to the scheme. Earlier this month, Health Minister Nicola Roxon laid out a "roadmap to reform" for the next two years, providing an overview of the national e-health deployment plan.

The ANAO also flagged a possible audit involving progress on recommendations set forth by the Gershon Review on federal government IT. Specifically, the audit would examine "how selected Australian government organisations have implemented new arrangements in response to the ICT Reform Program", according to the report.

The 2008 technology review, headed up by Sir Peter Gershon, set down recommendations for the management of governmental IT services in Australia.

The recommendations included setting up a whole-of-government strategy for datacentre procurement, and the reduction of IT contractor use within the government.

The government had already commissioned a review of government progress on the Gershon recommendations. This review was carried out by former National E-Health Transition Authority CEO Dr Ian Reinecke, and was recently handed in to the government.

The full ANAO work report can be found here (PDF).