ACT Health to train 14,500 workers in new Digital Health Record system

Authorities say they will have to use extra agency staff to back-fill rosters to enable staff to take part in training for the Digital Health Record project during work hours.

The more than $150 million project will collate paper and clinical records of patients held in separate IT systems across the territory's public health system.

ACT Health chief information officer Peter O'Halloran said it would mean 14,500 staff across 45 sites in the public health system would be able to access a single record for a patient.

"It's bringing together, in a single system, the work that's done by clinicians over 40 different systems across the public health system," he said.

"It gives those staff members a system that makes them much more efficient, that presents all the information in a single place about a patient for them to see and readily access.

"We think over the next few years it will actually help transform the clinical care provided in the ACT."

Training sessions will be provided across the territory and it will also run on weekends to enable staff to attend.

Staff will attend training during work hours but there are some concerns from staff about how this could exacerbate already existing staffing shortages. Over recent months, up to 150 staff a day have been off work due to unplanned leave.

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Mr O'Halloran said health services had worked on redoing their rosters to enable staff to be released from clinical services. He said the recent territory budget also included money for agency staff and for extra overtime.

"Additional clinical care is still provided at the same time that all these 14,000-plus users are being trained in the system so I think that's probably a key part," he said.

"There's a whole range of activities that health services are doing to ensure they can release staff for trading and still keep providing clinical services ... we're bringing in additional agency nurses and a whole range of other things to help supplement that workforce."

Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said last month the roll out of the project would have a "significant impact" across the public health system. Ms Stephen-Smith also said some elective surgeries will be done in private hospitals while the system is being rolled out.

Mr O'Halloran said work had been under way on the project over the past two years, with teams doing everything from building the infrastructure to customising software and training.

ACT Health chief nursing and midwifery information officer Rebecca Heland said huge numbers of staff had been booked in for training.

She said there were 16 principal trainers who had spent at least 18 months on preparing a curriculum, getting the materials ready and making sure the spaces for the actual sessions had been planned.

The Digital Health Record is expected to go live on November 12.

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