National e-health vision unleashed in September

The Victorian government has hired Deloitte for AU$1.3 million to develop an Australia-wide e-health strategy.

The strategy is intended to provide a vision or recommended "future state" for e-health over both public and private sectors for the next five to 10 years, and give advice on what forms of governance will need to be put into place to manage it, according to tender documents.

To come up with the strategy, Deloitte will be delving into Australia's current e-health capability in all states, public and private, and the current effects of technology on healthcare. The state of international e-health will also form part of the report.

Major initiatives needed to achieve the "future state" will be identified in the work, along with an implementation plan which lays out priorities, outcomes, resource requirements, time lines, costs, benefits, dependencies, risks and costs.

Deloitte is also expected to give Australia a score on how likely it is that it will be able to implement the plan, taking into account factors such as skills required, and suggestions as to how any problems might be eased.

The consultants' appointment follows a recommendation from a review by the Boston Consulting Group completed earlier this year and will see Deloitte finishing their e-health plan in September, after beginning work last month.

Examples of the technologies which the plan will consider include clinical communication systems such as online referrals and e-prescribing, and electronic health records.