Budgets, Activity Plans and Slog…

I have been busy the last week or so preparing Activity Plans and a Budget
for the IT Section at Goroka General Hospital. Budgets are a pain in the
proverbial no matter where one is and Goroka is certainly no exception.

The planning side of things is somewhat more exciting although the Budget
and the Plan will be presented to Management and ultimately to Moresby as
one document. The Activity Plan as they call it is basically a blueprint or
Information Systems roadmap for the Hospital, together with costings of
course. I came to PNG motivated and with a vision – this still holds true
and if anything it has evolved. My vision now includes an Integrated Health
Information System (HIS) for the whole of PNG – Hospitals and National
Government all in one – all based on an Open Source Model. At the end of the
day it naturally comes down to bucks – no bucks/no spending – no spending/no
systems. My initial challenge is to engage an interest from the folks in the
National Department of Health. If I can do that I'm of to a good start and a
good start means that there's definitely a chance. As they say where there's
a will there's a way and right now there is certainly will. Will it be or
not that is the question.

More will definitely be revealed… as is always the case.