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NSW Health has awarded a collective $7.2 million across four contracts to Telstra and three other organisations for various digital projects across the agency.
Out of the total figure, Telstra was awarded $2.6 million; $1.5 million went to independent software vendor Orion Health; geospatial technology consultancy NGIS Australia nabbed $1.1 million and the US-based cloud business management software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider Apptio received $2 million.
Both Telstra’s and Orion Health’s contracts were related to the state’s Justice Health and Forensic Mental Health Network, which provides health services to those in contact with the NSW criminal justice and forensic mental health systems.
The telco's five-year contract is focused on connecting 47 of the Network sites to eHealth NSW’s Health Wide Area Network (HWAN) and is expected to “enable direct, robust, high-speed network connectivity to NSW Health services and systems,” according to a spokesperson from eHealth NSW.
The HWAN supports remote access, multimedia applications and services, data exchange voice and video services and wireless access across NSW Health.
Meanwhile, Orion's two-year, eight-month contract is to implement an electronic medication management system for the Justice Health and Forensic Mental Health Network, covering 500 users and 300 patient beds.
According to the spokesperson, this project will see the agency consolidate its digital systems for prescribing, ordering, reviewing and recording the administration of medicines, which will be integrated into its existing Orion-based electronic medical record platform.
Outside of work on the Network, NGIS Australia's contract is for a three-year supply deal of “streets data” for locating triple zero callers and routing ambulances to incidents.
As for Apptio, its contract is for a five-year SaaS subscription to its cost transparency product for the “continuous improvement of the ability to manage and monitor infrastructure costs”, the eHealth NSW spokesperson claimed.
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