SA Health will put on 30 temporary staff and has set up a taskforce to help improve pathology test turnaround times following delays to some test results since the introduction of the Enterprise Pathology Laboratory Information System (EPLIS) in 2017.
SA Health deputy chief executive Don Frater said the increase in turnaround times was largely due to initial data entry requirements associated with the roll out of EPLIS, which has been built for SA Health by Cerner at a cost of $29 million.
SA Health will also expedite the transition to full electronic test ordering at Royal Adelaide Hospital and The Queen Elizabeth Hospital to reduce the data entry requirement for SA Pathology staff.