As the industry awaited the government's belated response to the Royle review 18 months after it had been delivered, and its subsequent decision on the future of the PCEHR, NEHTA and the new Primary Health Networks (PHNs), April dawned with some big news and some pointers to developing sagas that would keep us interested in the coming year.
One of the biggest announcements came on April 1, when the federal Department of Health announced it was dumping IBM as its prime ICT infrastructure and support services contractor after 15 years. Pulse+IT doesn't usually cover non-clinical, back-office stories like this one, but the awarding of the five-year, $242 million contract to New Zealand-owned IT services provider Datacom came as a bit of an eyebrow-raiser.
