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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 2 Hansard (27 February) . . Page.. 324 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

The level of improvement is such that, for the first time, this month I have at least a draft of the same sort of information - it is not perfect yet - from Calvary Hospital. Up until now the data from Calvary Hospital has not been all that great. We now have that on board. It was something that the previous Government was asked for many times.

With regard to information from our hospital system, our information technology system must work. It must be integrated. It must work not just in accident and emergency, not just in our human resources management area. All of those things have to work together. The system that I inherited did not interface. We have at least three or four different computer systems at Woden Valley Hospital, one of them being MediLinc, that do not interface with other systems. Our casemix system that Mr Connolly released as bells and whistles, Trendstar, as everyone would remember, is a great system. It just does not happen to interface with any of our other systems. That is the problem we have. Our patient record system was introduced with a great deal of fanfare by Mr Connolly. It is a great system, but it does not tend to interface with our admission system; and so on it goes. Yes, the system is not perfect yet. It is a damn sight better than it was when we took over, but it does have a long way to go. We will get to a stage - in fact, I think we have progressed quite well to that stage - of having data that is reliable, is integrated and can be used for management purposes.

MR BERRY: I must say, Mr Speaker, that the blank page that we got in the report is more reliable than most of the information that Mrs Carnell provides.

MR SPEAKER: Is this a supplementary question, Mr Berry?

MR BERRY: Because of her fervour for this sort of information in the past, I wonder whether the Chief Minister, with this bursting enthusiasm she has for information, could explain to us why it has taken her seven months to address this problem. Why have we not had action taken up until this point? It is all right for us to be burdened with the honeyed words, the rhetoric and all that sort of stuff, but what we want to see is a bit of action instead of this sort of rhetoric.

MR SPEAKER: Thank you. I think we got the question. "Why did it take seven months?", was it, Mr Berry - leaving aside the honeyed prawns or the honeyed words or whatever you were talking about?

MRS CARNELL: All that stuff, yes. Mr Speaker, the fact that the page is in the report with an explanation about why Table 3 is not there shows that we have absolutely nothing to hide. We agree that that information - - -

Ms Follett: That is right. It is a blank page.

Mr Berry: You cannot hide it in a blank page.

MR SPEAKER: Order!

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