Queensland ICT Minister Ros Bates has used an AIIA Briefing in Brisbane to announce a comprehensive review of the Queensland Government’s use of IT, with an eye to finding savings. Fairfax reports that the IT audit will cost $5.2 million and will be undertaken by a 32 member team in the months to October.
Bates told Fairfax that it was “time to deliver up the dead bodies" and put forward the Queensland Driver Licence Project as one example of a project whose future will closely scrutinised.
In April, Intermedium listed the Queensland IT projects that were most likely to fall victim to a State-wide savings drive.
The two-year roll-out of electronic Medical Records (eMR) to the NSW Ambulance Service is well underway. The new system will replace hand-filled forms as the primary means of communicating clinical information to receiving hospitals, and will include the installation of a computer and a printer in 900 Ambulances.
“By 1 October 2012, our paramedics will be self sufficient within the ambulance to record the assessment and treatment for each patient,” said the Ambulance Online newsletter.
IT News has reported that the Commonwealth Treasury plans to have rolled-out an integrated SharePoint system to all of its staff and divisions by next year, consolidating a number of separate instances of the software that have been in use since 2007.
The US Government has released its ICT Strategy, entitled ‘Digital Government: Building a 21st Century Platform to Better Serve the American People’. The 12 month implementation roadmap requires agencies to improve digital services, especially when it comes to delivery via mobile technologies.
Hewlett-Packard has won a $2.6 million contract with the Department of Defence through its Enterprise Class Equipment Agreement, which will be closed down upon its expiry at the end of this year.
The Australian Taxation Office has purchased 100 A3 Colour Printers from Fuji Xerox for $799,000, and another 400 black and white printers from Lexmark for $831,000. Both contracts have been signed through the Major Office Machines Equipment and Support Panel.
Fairfax has reported that only a limited version of the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) will be available when the scheme’s ambitious launch date of 1 July 2012 rolls around. Only Medicare data will be available through the system at this date, with other clinical information to follow later.
A cloud-based, pay-as-you-go infrastructure platform allowing developers to develop apps for government agencies is one of seven mobile solutions to win a slice of $1 million in funding from the NSW Department of Trade and Investment, Regional Infrastructure and Services.
The NSW Government has followed in the footsteps of Western Australia and South Australia by getting rid of car registration stickers, effective 1 July 2013. New technologies such as Automatic Number Plate Recognition systems will now be used for the enforcement of vehicle registration, and car owners and auto mechanics will both have access to a new Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) website allowing them to check registration details.
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