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Health SMART Modernization Programme

Referencing Style: Harvard

Word Count: 4,175

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1. Introduction

Nowadays, people live in an atmosphere, which is operated entirely with several technologies

and thus, technology becomes a crucial part amid the lives of the human beings and has

tremendous influenced the daily life of people. Accordingly, technology and diversified

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has influenced and organized the quality

of the health care organizations by constructing the health care organizations into smart

health care in order to provide modern and effective health services (Adibi, 2014).

However, the health smart programme was not an ideal replica for health care organizations

and due to overruns of cost and delays in implementation of several assignments, health

smart programme became an excessive failure programme within the health care

organizations. The following assignment is about to evaluate the core reasons for the failure

of smart health programme within healthcare organizations.

2. Discussion

2.1 Core Issues Associated with the Failure of the Programme

Victorian health care organizations were looking forward to provide the exceptional health

care services to the health care service users and thus, the Victorian government started to

follow the way of utilizing Health SMART programmes within the health care organizations

(Chin et al., 2013). However, the utilization of health smart e-programmes within the health

care organization was not a successful installation of technology within the health cares. The

major ambitions of installing the system within health cares are to merge the health related

financial systems with the record management systems of the patients through broad

Electronic Health Record (ERD) systems (Colquhoun, 2012).

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In order to operate the system, the Victorian government delivered a budget of $A323 million

in June, 2007. However, in the end of the financial year, a large number of money that is 57%

has spent on the project except only 24% of the project was completed. To accomplish, the

entire programme, a budget had been projected, which was $A427 million and the projected

date had been slipped to 2009 (Hodgkinson, 2012). In this matter of fact, several questions

were obtained again concerning the health smart programme. The completion date was

projected to 2012 from 2009 and again a massive number of currencies that was $A100

million had risen. It has discovered that by the end of the Health SMART programme, $A566

million had been utilized to complete the programme (Keith, 2015). However, the

programme was still in progress and had insufficient works to make the programme

functional. In that case, the government decided to shut the programme down.

Furthermore, in order to find out the core issues those are associated with the Health SMART

programme, some relevant audit reports has taken into consideration. According to the report,

it is to be stated that the Department of Health of Victoria faced several consequences

regarding to the implementation of ICT systems throughout other19 health care service

organizations (Julien, 2014). On the basis of the report, it can be mentioned that Victorian

Health Department was failed to install the effective clinical ICT systems within the health

care organizations due to lack of adequate planning as well as insufficient acknowledgement

regarding the utilization of the systems. As a report, the ICT system was not implemented to

the other health care organizations (Forchuk et al., 2015).

The Auditor of the report John Doyle stated that overrun of the cost and schedule was the

major reason behind the failure of the Health SMART programme. According to the report, it

is to be noticed that the cost for the Health SMART programme was exceeded during the

month. The overall cost of the SMART programme had blown out to $145.3 million from the

original projected budget, which were $58.3 million and thus, the entire Health SMART

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programme was collapsed due to blown out the overall budget (Sustainable Development

Working Group, 2017). On the other hand, the overrun of the cost affected the entire system

in several manners. In order to install the Health SMART system for each health care

organization, a massive numbers of costs are about to be paid by the health care organization

as a charge of installation and for that, $36.3 million were required to be paid off.

The Health SMART programme was designed and put into action in order to grasp the

beneficiary advantages those were meant to be obtained by utilizing the systems through out

the health care organizations. In order to utilize this kind of effective information technology,

adequate budget, proper schedule as well as appropriate training is excessively required

(Hyde et al., 2017). However, all the required criteria were exceeded and nothing but failure

came at the end of the manufacturing process. As a result, the government of Victoria ordered

to collapse the entire system and programme was shut down.

The programme cost a massive loss for the government and for that reason; the Health

Minister of Victoria announced that the government would no longer be a part of this

programme and will start on the individual system, which was hospital to hospital based

programme. Due to excessive overrun of both the cost and the schedule and inadequate

cooperation from the Victorian government forced the system to be shut down and as a result

the entire Health SMART programme was never been completed (Shi et al., 2018). In order

provide judgment regarding the major issues of the Health SMART programme, it is

excessively required to be stated that one of the massive issues that is found by utilizing

Health SMART programme within the healthy care organizations was that, Melbourne

hospitals send incorrect records of the patients to the GPs due to massive error within the

system of Health SMART programme. The programme mixed all the personal data of the

patients with other patients and therefore, adequate results of the patients were not possible to

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provide to the patients, which was a massive issue found within the programme (LOVE,

2015).

2.2 Analysing the Control System of the Programme

The health SMART programme was launched in 2004 with the cooperation of the

government of Victoria with an immense intention to corporate both the financial records of

the health care organizations and the records of the patients as well. In order to operate the

programme of Health SMART within the health care organizations, an effective cluster of

Information Technology products i.e. ‘State-wide Footprint’ is associated with diversified

systems such as Business Suite of Oracle, i.PM of CSC, Millennium Solutions of Cerner as

well as the Intersystem TraKCare (Sianaki et al., 2018).

However, then system of State-wide Footprint was not working sufficiently as it had been

expected. Moreover, the programme started to delay, which was beyond the expectations and

as an outcome of failure, the entire system was decided to shut down before making the

system functional. The unfinished programme cost a worth of $A330 million to the

government (Solanas et al., 2014). The board members have described that the core reason of

failure of the programme is to think that all the health care service is similar and thus one

effective programme would be sufficient to manage the overall functions of the health care

services.

2.3 Analysing Cost and Schedule Overruns

The government of Victoria has shut down the entire system of Health SMART programme

due to the overruns of costs and widely delay in the implementation of the assignments. The

announcement concerning the Health SMART programme was not entirely unexpected.

According to the report of The Age News Paper, the government had cut off the funding for

the stuff numbers in the last years (Wang et al., 2015). The government had allocated an

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amount of $A100 million in the last four years in order to fulfil and accomplish the entire

project. However, it was literally unexpected that what the project might be able to do and

how much budget does it really required to make it entirely functional.

On the basis of that, the government had ceased the overall budget from June 30 and stated

that from now on the government would work on a certain setup, which is based upon

hospital-to-hospital individual system. On the other hand, the Health SMART project of

Victoria worth of $320 million has failed due to overruns of the schedule (Adibi, 2014). A

deal was made with Cerner to make the programme fully functional within the allocated time.

However, the schedule delayed for another years, which had overrun the entire budget and

cost by $17 million to $96 million in the financial year of 2006.

The government of Victoria was tremendously ambitious to utilize the mechanisms of Health

SMART programme in order to cope with the modernization as well as with the information

technological infrastructure within the health care organizations. The motive of the Victorian

government behind installing the Health SMART programme was to combine both the

financial related reports of the health care organizations along with the patient records in

order to manage in an adequate manner (Ombudsman, 2011). The government of Victoria

and the other execution teams were excessively ambitious concerning the utilization and the

beneficiary advantages of Health SMART programme and as a result, the government

projected a budget of $323 million in order to complete the entire operation of Health

SMART programme and the completion data was projected within June, 2007 (Victoria and

Davey, 2013). A massive number of budgets were projected for accomplishing the entire IT

infrastructure.

However, both the projected budget and the expected date of completion of the entire system

had failed and the Health SMART programme could not be delivered within the expected

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time table. By the end of 2007, a large number of budgets that was 57% had already been

spent on the programme, but only 24% of the programme had been accomplished (Julien,

2014). Large numbers of work were still in progress and as a result, both the expected date of

completion and the cost exceeded massively. The overrun of the schedule made an excessive

loss for the government with an effective cost of $427 million and the completion date of the

project rolls out in late 2009 (Forchuk et al., 2015). Several agencies and governmental

bodies were ready to shut down the entire projects due to overrun of both the cost and

schedule, which was making excessive loss to the governmental funds. However, the

government was still ambitious to continue the programme and provided sufficient support to

accomplish the programme and to make it entirely functional.

With the flow of time, the completion date of the Health SMART programme rolled out to

2010 from 2009, which made sufficient reason for additional loss to the governmental funds.

In that reason, a government body named Baillieu Government was appointed in order to

monitor the entire programme and put the government body into action in case of necessity of

shutting down the entire programme (Sustainable Development Working Group, 2017). The

Health SMART programme could not be accomplished by 2010 and the expected date

occurred in the end of 2012. Overrun of the schedule for accomplishing the programme

simultaneously made an overrun of the cost for the government. Due to overrun of the cost

and the schedule, the projected budget exceeded in a massive manner and another $100

million were required in order to accomplish the Health SMART programme.

2.4 Evaluating the Project Execution Team

In order to make the Health SMART programme of Victoria more effective, a modern Client

and Patient Management System has been implemented within the health care organizations

along with the Health SMART programme of worth $50 million. Another system was

designed along with Health SMART programme. However, the system had some several

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difficulties to supply information to the British National Health Service (Chin et al., 2013). In

that case, one of the execution team members of Health SMART programme, the

communication director Greg King stated that the programme will be accomplished by 2009.

On the other hand, According to Greg King, another third party was associated to look after

the Health SMART programme such Oracle. In that case, Oracle achieved its position as one

of the dominant suppliers of Information Technology with the help of its E-business

Financial Management System, which is operated by 11 agencies (Colquhoun, 2012).

One of the head of the execution team members, Dr. Pradeep Philip from the Department of

Health of Victoria stated regarding the information technology along with the Health

SMART programme and the utilization of the information technology within the hospitals

and within the health care organizations. In the very beginning of the Health SMART

programme, the expert commission panel made the participation mandatory within the

context of Health SMART programme and the health care organizations started to follow the

advice and began to install Health SMART programmes within the health care organizations

(Ghazi et al., 2011).

However, there were several negative consequences found while the reports submitted to the

health care organizations regarding the personal information of the patients. Many health care

organizations found that the personal information of the patients were combined with other

patients and therefore, it made hazards for the health care organizations to find out the

adequate information of the proper patients. As a result, the system had been shut down from

the health care organizations. In the year of 2012, David Davis expressed diversified doubts

and negative expressions concerning the Health SMART programme and announced to cease

the programme immediately (Hsu et al., 2011). However, proper actions were never taken

against the programme.

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In order to recover the failure of Health SMART programme, the government of Victoria

offered a diversified uniform concerning the information technology and another IT system

occurred within the health care organizations to cope with the modernization and the era of

Information Technology. In order to cope with the modern era of technology within health

care organizations, the government offered an effective information system that was State-

wide Footprint. As a matter of fact, State-wide Footprint information system started to

provide its outcomes, which was beyond expectations and thus, the Health SMART

programme was shut down (Colquhoun, 2012). However, by shutting down the entire system

of Health SMART programme in 2012, the government of Victoria received $330 million

loss in capital funding.

The panel played an effective role as an execution team for the Health SMART programmes.

The outcomes and the overrun of both the cost and schedule of installing the entire SMART

programme forced the panel to state that all the health care organizations are not similar

(Hodgkinson, 2012). Each health care organization copes with its very own consequences and

thus, Health SMART programme will not be able to lend a hand towards the health care

organizations to deal with diversified situations and as a result, it is mandatory to be an

excessive failure within the context of information technology. As execution team members,

the roles of government, the Health Minister of Victoria and the commission panel are

exceedingly remarkable.

2.5 Relationship between Overruns and Stakeholders

All the efforts that had been planted to integrate financial management of the health care

organizations along with the records of the patients, managing the overall situation of the

patients and to manage the resources was shut down after the programme exceeds the

projected budget of $240 million (Hodgkinson, 2012). In that case, all the stakeholders those

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were associated with the health SMART programme made the decision to switch the

programme.

On the other hand, other stakeholders those were from USA about to purchase several

systems for accomplishing the programme. However, due to failure of the programme, the

stakeholders were about to modified the entire system in order to meet the requirements of

the local stakeholders and as a result, the modified system resulted an excessive cost overrun,

which simultaneously affected the stakeholders (Keith, 2015). Accordingly, poor planning

and lack of adequate decision behind running the health SMART programme affected the

stakeholders along the government.

In order to make the Health SMART programme entirely functional within the health care

organizations, the roles of each and every stakeholders are tremendously significant. Within

this context, some excessive noteworthy stakeholders are policymaker, payer, patients and

service providers (Shi et al., 2018). All the stakeholders are excessively significant in order to

make functional any programme within health care organizations. All the stakeholders of the

health care organizations are entirely reliable upon the modernization of information

technology and thus, while the Health SMART programme was announced to be operated

within the health care organizations, the stakeholders looked for better infrastructure of the

entire organizations. However, overrun of both the cost and schedule made uncomfortable the

stakeholders and as a result, the stakeholders were unable to rely upon the programme after a

long period of exceed the completion date of the programme.

I. Policymakers: Policy makers manufacture the health related framework, which is provided

to the service users by the service providers of heath care organizations. On the other hand,

the policies those are manufactured by the policy makers are also significant fort the health of

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the entire citizens. In that case, the policy makers can be also be stated as the ministry of

health those are associated with the wellness of the entire citizens (LOVE, 2015).

Policy makers always try to figure out new and innovative ways to provide the best health

related services to the patients. In that case, the new and effective method of Health SMART

programme grasps the attraction of the policy makers (Ombudsman, 2011). The policy

makers were excessively ambitious to make the programme functional within health care

organizations. However, both date and budget had exceeded as it was expected and thus, the

failure of the programme affected the policy makers and the policies for the patients and the

citizens.

II. Patients: Patients can be stated as the phenomenal citizens of the country those are

associated with the wellness of the country. In that case, the government, policymakers and

other government bodies are exceptionally ambitious concerning the wellness of the citizens

(Victoria and Davey, 2013). In order to provide effective health related services to the

patients or to the citizens, the government along with the ministry of health had obtained an

effective framework to manage the financial reported along with the personal reports of the

patients within health care organizations.

Therefore, Health SMART programme approach was adopted. However, several diversified

disputes were found within the system. On the other hand, the programme rolled out from the

completion date and exceeded the projected budget. Therefore, the entire project was shut

down and the citizens were affected by the dispute characteristics of the Health SMART

programme (Ghazi et al., 2011). Due to overrun of both cost and schedule of installing the

programme within the health care organizations, an effective relation between stakeholders

and the programme could not be made.

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III. Providers: Providers can also be mentioned as one of the noteworthy stakeholders within

the health care organizations. Providers play a significant role for delivering the best health

related services to the patients. On the other hand, providers also play a noteworthy role by

delivering the policies amid the citizens and the patients. The roles of providers are also

effective within the health care organizations in order to manage the financial and health

related information (Hsu et al., 2011). In this mater of fact, the government tried to provide

the Health SMART programme within the health care organizations in order to manage the

financial reports of the health care organizations along with personal information of the

patients. However, overrun of schedule affected the entire management system and therefore,

the providers did not able to rely upon the system.

IV. Payers: Payers are one of the significant members of stakeholders within health care

organizations. The overall system of the health care organizations and the policies are

depended on the effective job role of the payers. Payers operate the entire financial elements

of the health care organizations and manage the financial reports (Colquhoun, 2012). On the

basis of the reports of the payers, the policy makers produce the policies those are about to be

provided to the citizens for wellness of the health. Payers enrol the patients as a subject of

benefit.

In this matter of fact, the Victorian government and the health department of Victoria wished

to install the Health SMART programme within the health care organizations in order to

manage the financial reports of the health centres as well as the personal reports of the

patients. However, the mechanisms did not last long due to several faults within the

programme. The system mixed the patients name with other patients and thus, it made

difficulties to provide the adequate treatment to the appropriate patients (Hodgkinson, 2012).

On the other hand, the programme exceeded the projected time line and cots for which none

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of the stakeholders were able to rely upon the system and the system was shut down after a

while.

2.6 Evaluating Possible Actions for Success

Successful installation of Health SMART programme within the health care organizations,

some effective action plans are requited to be implemented within the health care

organizations. By means of evaluating the entire study, it has found that Health SMART

programme was designed in order to manage the financial reports of the health care

organizations along with the reports of the patients (Solanas et al., 2014). However, due to

lack of adequate planning and design, the entire system was decided to shut down, which

exceeds the cost of $240 million. In that case, to make the overall programme functional and

effective some actions are required to be utilized those are stated below:

I. Establish a Culture of Partnership: It is required to ensure that both vendor and service

users understand the beneficiary advantage of utilizing health SMART programme. On the

basis of cooperation and shared values between each party, the level of success might be

increase in an excessive manner

II. Identify Core Leaders: To make the programme functional and success, contribution of

administrative authority, technical authority and physicians are tremendously effectual.

III. Enlist Adequate Employers: Make sure that the enlisted individuals are enough

sufficient to cope with the Health SMART programme. In this matter of fact, the system can

be operated adequately and may obtain significant success by utilizing the programme within

health care organizations.

IV. Ensure the Values: To ensure the mission and goals of the programme within the health

care organizations, a clear objective and timeline is required to be maintained by the

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authorities as well as the stakeholders. In that case, the mission of installing the programme

will be remained.

V. Communicate and Decision Making: Health SMART programme was designed and was

about to be operated within the health are organizations in order to manage the financial

reports of the health care centres and to ensure the personal health related reports of the

patients. However, due to exceed the schedule and cost, the programme was shut down

(Julien, 2014). In that case, the Victorian government and the health department were

required to communicate with the stakeholders regarding the programme and should obtain

decision according to viewpoints of the stakeholders.

VI. Establish Timeline and Success Measures: One the effective reasons for shutting down

the entire system of Health SMART programme was exceeded of projected time and cost.

The government and the health department was quite ambitious concerning the beneficiary

advantages of Health SMART programme (Forchuk et al., 2015). But lack of adequate

leadership and improper measurement of success affected the entire programme along with

the government and the stakeholders of the health care organizations. In order to make the

programme successful and sustain for a long time, the government and the stakeholders

should establish an appropriate time line and an adequate manner for measuring the success

of the Health SMART programme.

VII. Adequate Training: Employability and skill of the employees are one of the effective

factors those are excessively associated with the success of a system or a programme within

health care organizations. Utilization of Information Technology requires nothing but an

excessive skill of employability of the employees (Hyde et al., 2017). Similarly, the

installation and the utilization of Health SMART programme is one of the mechanisms that

require adequate skill of the employees to operate the entire system. On the basis of that, the

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employees of the health care organizations are exceedingly required special training to

operate the system an in adequate manner (Shi et al., 2018).

(Source: Sianaki et al., 2018)

3. Conclusion

Implementation of Health SMART programme is undoubtedly one of the effective

technological appearances within health care organizations in this modern era. The

government of Victoria had projected a massive number of budgets for accomplishing the

programme and to make it functional. However, due to lack of adequate planning and

cooperation, the programme went far beyond as it was expected. The programme exceeds its

budget and overrun the cost and schedule of accomplishment and thus, the government

decided to shut down the entire system. However, some effective actions and with the

cooperation with the stakeholders can be utilized in order to make the entire system

functional and can be implemented within the health care organization to manage the reports

of both the financial context and patient records.

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