] PANORAMA - the error-prone infectious disease outbreak software, was budgeted at $27 million in B.C., but cost $113 million.
] > It clashed again with IBM earlier this year on a $842-million Clinical Systems and Transformation Project, which will give doctors and nurses faster access to electronic health records and bring many hospitals and health care centres under one set of electronic standards in Vancouver Coastal Health, the Provincial Health Services Authority and Providence Health Care.
] But this time instead of renegotiating the deal, the government fired IBM and reset the project while still in the design phase. “I think recalibrating early is something that’s a lesson learned,” said Lake.
] > Of eight high-profile IT projects recently undertaken by government — with a total price tag of $2.5 billion — several have faced serious difficulties and collectively they’ve overshot their budgets by a combined $350 million and counting.
] > The main problem facing the Clinical Systems project, and most health IT projects, is not the computers themselves — it’s finding a way to get all the health care workers, hospitals and facilities to agree on one set of processes, forms and procedures for each task, so that one way of doing a job can be entered into a computer and used by everyone, said minister Lake.