The Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City – A Journey to ‘Shared Information & Quality Care’

TestSafe is a confidential service that gives health care providers access to selected medical information so it is easier to make good decisions about your care. The Auckland region embarked on a journey to develop TestSafe to improve the quality of health care and reduce unnecessary diagnostic tests.

The journey was pioneering with its own unique challenges: it defied data ownership; it tested legal liability; business models were under question; patient privacy was perceived to be at risk and it was being undertaken for all the right reasons.

This project confirmed the need for a robust business case, a staged approach, strong governance, very active risk management and rigorous issue management. Quality would not be compromised, costs had to be managed which left a timeframe under threat. An agile approach was essential, benefits had to speak for themselves and the team needed courage to engage the critics. Other key lessons learnt will be shared.

The outcome is ground breaking and has paved the way for new models for sharing health information.

Sarah Thirlwall – IS Projects Director, healthAlliance

Sarah works for health Alliance as the IS Projects Director, managing a team to deliver a strategic programme of IT enabled initiatives across the Auckland regional public health service. Health Alliance is a shared service organisation within the Auckland region and it is health Alliance’s vision to be Centre's of Excellence. For the IS project office it is centre’s of excellence in project management service that the team strive to achieve. Sarah is a Prince2® and MSP® practitioner and introduced Prince2® to both owner District Health Boards on the appreciation Prince2® is a ‘good fit’ for the health environment. Sarah’s other specialist interest areas are in change management and investment prioritisation