The Baird government has vowed to pump $300 million over the next four years into e-health projects if it is re-elected on Saturday. Health minister, Jillian Skinner said on Thursday that the NSW government had made a record investment in IT in its first term, rolling out new projects across the state’s 15 local health districts and two specialty networks. If re-elected, the government said it would spend $48 million to expand e-health programs across rural and remote areas; $4 million to deploy an extra 100 tele-health sites, adding to the 1000 sites already in operation; and $4.9 million to rollout HealtheNet to a further 11 local health districts. HealtheNet provides NSW Health clinicians with access to a consolidated view of a patient’s clinical information from across NSW Health and a patient’s National eHealth Record through the NSW Clinical Portal. Further, the government promised to spend $3.5 million to enhance the ‘Hospital in the Home’ program in rural areas through initiatives that provide community nurses with laptops and mobile devices, and in-home monitoring devices for patients. The program provides care to patients at their home or clinic as an alternative to hospital care. Finally, the government said it would create a new NSW Health eHealth Strategic Plan: Enabling eHealth 2021 to provide a clear direction for future ICT investment and e-health programs. Skinner claimed that the days of paper records being lugged around and physically transferred from treating doctor to doctor will soon be over thanks to the HealtheNet, Electronic Medications Management and Electronic Medical Records systems. She said the government is adding a voice recognition capacity to the Electronic Medical Records system. Every day in NSW, around 23,000 clinicians log on 250,000 electronic records and order 140,000 tests, she said. The system has been piloted at Concord Hospital, and has demonstrated a 66 per cent reduction in prescribing errors, and a 44 per cent reduction in serious prescribing errors. Follow CIO Australia on Twitter and Like us on Facebook… Twitter: @CIO_Australia, Facebook: CIO Australia, or take part in the CIO conversation on LinkedIn: CIO Australia Follow Byron Connolly on Twitter:@ByronConnolly Related content BrandPost The future of trust—no more playing catch up Broadcom: 2023 Tech Trends That Transform IT By Eric Chien, Director of Security Response, Symantec Enterprise Division, Broadcom Mar 31, 2023 5 mins Security BrandPost TCS gives Blackhawk Network an edge with Microsoft Cloud In this case study, Blackhawk Network’s Cara Renfroe joins Tata Consultancy Services’ Rakesh Kumar and Microsoft’s Nilendu Pattanaik to explain how TCS transformed the gift card company’s customer engagement and global operati By Tata Consultancy Services Mar 31, 2023 1 min Financial Services Industry Cloud Computing IT Leadership BrandPost How TCS pioneered the ‘borderless workspace’ with Microsoft 365 Microsoft’s modern workplace solution proved a perfect fit for improving productivity and collaboration, while maintaining security of systems and data. By Tata Consultancy Services Mar 31, 2023 1 min Financial Services Industry Microsoft Cloud Computing BrandPost Supply chain decarbonization: The missing link to net zero By improving the quality of global supply chain data, enterprises can better measure their true carbon footprint and make progress toward a net-zero business ecosystem. By Tata Consultancy Services Mar 31, 2023 2 mins Retail Industry Supply Chain Green IT Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe