The Australian Digital Health Agency is set to outsource the creation and execution of its next corporate IT strategy.
ADHA - which has oversight of My Health Record, electronic prescribing and other digital health services - made an external approach last last month for a company to “deep dive into [its] ICT environment to establish a corporate IT/digital strategy” and IT roadmap comprising “a sensible three-to-four year schedule of milestones and deliverables”.
The decision to outsource corporate IT strategy and execution was made to keep “valuable staff resources… focused on delivering government priorities”, a spokesperson for the agency told iTnews.
“This is a short-term piece of work to refresh and set in place an updated plan of action for the agency’s internal corporate IT uplift,” the spokesperson said.
“On this occasion the agency has chosen to outsource this targeted body of work.
“Outsourcing will also bring in specific expertise and new ideas in leading-edge corporate IT design and internal technology systems.
“Delivery on the agreed actions will be led and supported internally.”
The new IT strategy and roadmap is anticipated to create an uplift in the agency’s collaboration systems, “devices to support hybrid ways of working” and data storage - three areas the spokesperson specifically identified as needing improvement.
The agency also said that it wants to “rationalise” - consolidate - an unspecified number of business systems, as well as “maximise use of Dynamics 365”.
Dynamics 365 was brought into the agency under a 2021 deal with Microsoft. The CRM system is “broadly-used” internally, according to recruitment advertisements [pdf].
The spokesperson said an immediate refresh - together with “a clear path forward for our future internal IT systems … will help ensure that our staff are supported to deliver on governments’ digital health priorities as effectively as possible, now and into the future.”
