Oracle sorts out hospitals' Y2K compliancy health

By Adam Gifford

Waitemata Health, which runs North Shore and Waitakere Hospitals, is rushing to install a a set of Oracle applications to replace several legacy systems that are not year 2000 compliant.

The general manager of finance and business services, Robin Skeggs, said the finance and materials management systems were due to go live in April, and the human resource system in September. Payroll should be completed by March 2000.

The project was worth about $2.5 million.

Project director Michael Sallai said the initial installation involved about 40 seats, and the system would eventually include about 150 seats in the corporate support area. It would allow the organisation's 3250 staff to access leave and payroll records and complete timesheets online.

The Oracle software component of the project was worth about $1 million.

Mr Sallai said Waitemata Health wanted to take advantage of Oracle's online ordering and payment systems. The new system would allow direct purchasing by individual cost centres, such as the different wards and community-based units.

Users could use the Internet to order agreed products from preferred suppliers, contained in an online catalogue linked to a standard order template that is sent electronically to the supplier.

Any necessary authorisation would take place online and goods would then be sent directly to the person placing the order. Individuals would also be able to track orders and query delivery.

Waitemata Health hoped the system would allow it to cut the number of preferred suppliers, get better prices from the bulk purchase of goods and improve services from suppliers.

Mr Skeggs said the financial applications system would allow wards and other units to manage their budgets more efficiently.

"Both the financial and Web requisition system will have significant benefits to remote users who spend very little time in a central office location and have had limited access to organisational information," he said. This would include spending less time on administration tasks.

Oracle is betting on the Internet becoming the primary network for an increasing amount of enterprise-level computing.

Its health industry manager, Richard Vernon, said: "Waitemata Health's system of applications demonstrates the benefits of Web-based processes for a large organisation spread over a wide geographical area."