South Australian Department of Health

Project

The project developed the Communication Strategies and Plans to support the $94million Open Architecture Clinical Information System (Oacis) implementation project to South Australian metropolitan public health – 4 teaching and 4 major public hospitals. Its purpose was to deliver the right message to the right people at the right time using the right medium.

Process

• Organisation research
• Communication strategy
  • Identification of 36 separate stakeholder groups
  • Analysis of group mindsets
  • Development of a Communication Strategy for each group
  • Distill Strategies into Communication Plans for dovetailing with Training Strategies and immediate implementation

Results

• Successful development of an environment conducive to communication and cultural change across the whole of South Australian metropolitan public health
• Independent and unsolicited positive feedback from the CEOs of three hospitals including the suggestion that the Oacis Project should be used as a case study for successful IT project implementations
• Confirmation from these CEOs that the Communication Program successfully engaged stakeholders and set correct expectations.

Benefits

• Greater stakeholder consensus resulting in:
  • Lower project implementation risk
  • Reduced waste of competing project resources
  • Quicker solution acceptance and adoption providing faster business returns
• Better understanding by DHS, healthcare professionals and other stakeholders, reducing obstruction, justifying further investment and creating improved morale
• Development of significant intellectual property for DHS, an enduring asset available for re-use in the South Australian health sector to reduce the cost and risk of subsequent, similar technology implementations, for instance Patient Administration Systems