One of our top stories this week was the retirement of Queensland Health director-general Michael Walsh after four years in the role, having had a few stints previously with NSW Health. Some in the Brisbane media thought they had a scalp following recent revelations that Mr Walsh had admitted that the roll-out of the state's Cerner integrated electronic medical record had been a big more challenging than acknowledged publicly.

Quelle surprise. Implementing an EMR in a large hospital system is enormously difficult and fraught, as numerous examples here and around the world attest to. And in Queensland, the ieMR roll out has never been smooth. Some clinicians still loathe it and would far prefer to stick to existing software or to try something different. That's highly unlikely at this stage, and we think Mr Walsh's comments were basic common sense.