Audit finds BC’s public health data system is over budget, overdue

VICTORIA (NEWS 1130) – It’s over budget, overdue and doesn’t do what it’s intended to. That’s the jist of a report from BC’s Auditor General on a IT system meant to organize Canada’s response to disease outbreaks.

It comes out of a report on how Canada handled the SARS outbreak. It was suggested Canada get a country-wide system to track cases of infectious disease, monitor how much vaccine we have and who has already been immunized.

BC’s health ministry was chosen to coordinate the project for the whole country because of its experience with infectious disease management and the fact it had developed predecessors of the project.

The Panorama Public Health IT System was scheduled to be finished in 2007, but wasn’t completed until 2010 and cost much more than expected. Auditor General Carol Bellringer says the project has cost BC $115-million so far with annual maintenance costs of about $14-million. Bellringer says her office considered an audit much earlier in 2011. “Because implementation was just getting underway, we decided not to audit Panorama at that time. Instead we gave the ministry almost three more years to work through the issues. However, this audit found that the expected improvement did not happen.”

Bellringer says the system is full of glitches. “Slow performance and unexpected system outages mean that the system cannot always provide clinicians with complete and accurate patient information when they need it.”

Another main issue is the amount of time that’s been spent on Panorama and we still don’t have a program that does what it should. Bellringer is worried it’s all for nothing. “BC’s implementation of Panorama is 420 per cent over budget and five years late. It does not meet expectations. Years of delay mean that Panorama may already be outdated.”

The auditor general is recommending the BC government find another more cost-effective system through an independent review. It’s telling the ministry is should review its project management, contract management and leadership practices.

Bellringer says this is why her office is conducting a review into why the BC government seems to be having trouble whenever it tries to implement near IT systems.

The Ministry of Health is already saying this system is an improvement over what we had before and it has no plans to make changes.

Listen to NEWS 1130’s Jill Drews break down all the details on the report:

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