The federal government has awarded Deloitte a significant contract to develop the “foundational capability” for Australia’s future national digital health ecosystem.
Deloitte was awarded the deal by the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) on Monday to develop the Health Information Gateway, which will be a “secure and scalable platform for exchanging and accessing health information”, including vaccinations and aged care data.
This will see the redevelopment of a key component of the controversial My Health Record in the programming interface gateway, which was previously managed by Accenture on a contract worth well over $550 million.
While the ADHA announced the contract on Monday, the details of it do not have to be made public on AusTender for another 42 days, and the agency declined to reveal the value of it.
The ADHA contract with Deloitte marks the beginning of the first phase of the modernisation of the national digital health infrastructure, the agency said, with the Health Information Gateway to be a “pivotal piece of national digital health enabling technology”.
“A connected healthcare system is at the heart of the National Digital Health Strategy, and while our national digital health infrastructure has already delivered significant benefits for Australians, it is now time to modernise and unlock the potential that new technologies offer,” ADHA CEO Amanda Cattermole said.
“The new Health Information Gateway will reduce costs and technical and operational complexity often faced by healthcare providers by setting in place a single, consolidated gateway with reusable interfaces available to developers.
“And it requires fewer connections to be developed between healthcare providers and My Health Record and other digital health products and services. This goes a long way to making the sharing of patient information between healthcare providers easier.”
The gateway will be used by federal, state and territory agencies along with healthcare providers, offering a “single point of access to the national digital health ecosystem”. It will initially connect in with My Health Record, and later with other national digital health systems.
My Health Record currently uses an Oracle solution for this, with Accenture running this since 2012. This contract, which came to an end last week, is worth more than $550 million.
The ADHA went to the market for the project in November last year, with Deloitte selected following a competitive tender process.
“This important gateway services contract will add to Australia’s national digital infrastructure and we are looking forward to making an important contribution to helping the ADHA to deliver contemporary digital services that enhance Australians’ access to health products and services,” Deloitte Consulting partner Ben Wylie said.
Deloitte is playing a significant role in the redevelopment of a number of key digital government services offerings. The firm has played the predominant role in the revamping of the myGov platform since it developed a prototype early last year.
It has since been paid over $30 million for this ongoing work, and is on a small panel of companies selected to continue this project this year.
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