"We need a state-wide, health-grade network for collaboration, particularly when pushing EMR out of hospitals and into the community," he said. "The project here is making sure the infrastructure is all updated and current by replacing ageing servers and switches. It's an ongoing investment until we can describe it as a health-grade network."

"For IT there is a clear warning or heads-up. We are moving to an environment where health IT will involve critical delivery of EMR which needs to run 24-by-7. for those users. You cannot replace paper records and not have them available all the time. Gartner describes it as high-velocity ICT."

Rodgers borrowed another quote from Gartner on the definition of e-health. According to the research firm, e-health embraces the full continuum of care, not just what happens in hospitals. And the technology must be optimised for clinicians and focussed on tasks and events.

"E-health projects are not ICT projects, they are business clinical transformation projects and should be run as such," Rodgers said. "IT people can't do that without proper engagement of clinicians and other stakeholders. We are dealing with a complex set of stakeholders and their engagement is critical. So is change management and the training that comes with that."