Page 3701 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 26 August 2009
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largest preventable cause of adverse outcomes in the healthcare system. There are many reasons for this.
Mr Hanson: There’s a Canberra business that’s been trying to employ that in ACT hospitals for years, and you won’t talk to them.
Ms GALLAGHER: Mr Hanson interjects with claims that the government will not talk to a local company that offers a similar product. That is actually incorrect. The government has engaged in discussions with the provider. I know I should not respond to interjections, but Mr Hanson is the serial and worst offender in this place when it comes to interjections. He actually ends up through question time asking about 45 questions when he is actually entitled to one. I hate to see with your proposed changes to the standing orders, Mr Speaker, how many questions he will actually get in once those changes come into place.
Mr Hanson is wrong on that. That is quite incorrect. The money for that product was only appropriated in the June sittings of the Assembly. Just because it is local and just because it provides a similar product to what we are actually looking for does not mean it is right. There is a process that needs to be gone through. I am sure Mr Hanson would support appropriate procurement processes rather than just providing a multimillion dollar contract to somebody who offers that product just because they are local and, therefore, they are right. I will no longer respond to Mr Hanson’s interjections unless they are as wrong as the last one he interjected with.
There are multiple benefits of electronic medication management, and I think seeing it in play in this hospital really did give the delegation the sense of opportunity that exists from using automated prescribing and robotic dispensing in terms of ensuring the patient experience in the hospital is optimum.
We saw a combination of digital technology, smart cards, automatic stock control, the work that automatically guided vehicles do across the health system, and the widespread use of SMS and wireless-enabled communication protocols to ensure that staff are able to spend more time in direct patient care and less time in the clerical process of ordering and restocking. Both hospitals have been able to achieve significant efficiencies in the support functions required to run the hospitals through the integration of the use of the most modern technologies.
I came away from this study tour convinced that, whilst we have a lot of work ahead of us, we are on the right track in terms of the redevelopment of our healthcare system. We have done a lot of planning. We have provided the suitable investment. We will need to work through a number of issues here as we are not as advanced in the detailed planning stage about the adoption of new technologies, but we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity here to create and to fold these technologies into the public health system. I look forward to working with the Assembly as we do that to build the best healthcare system we can for the people of the ACT.
Mr Stanhope: I ask that all further questions be placed on the notice paper.
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