Continuing with the Council for Science and Technology’s recommendation of six technology sectors that should be targeted for public sector funding (as found on Silicon.com), we come to e-health systems.

We have been following the travails of NPfIT, which should have been a pioneer in e-health systems, but instead looks like it’s heading for the negative example category–how not to do it. My personal theory (probably not the Blindside consensus and almost certainly not the CSIA’s) is that the procurement structure made failure inevitable for NPfIT, and everything that has happened since has just been recording a bad accident in slow motion.

Jay Nussbaum of Oracle used to preach: “Start small, win quickly, scale fast.” Sounds like a prescription for a successful e-health system. Doesn’t sound at all like the way e-health systems are planned or commissioned.

At this point, I would predict with some confidence that increased public funding of e-health systems would only result in a bigger-sized failure. And yet, e-health systems are inevitable and desireable. So I would agree with the CST’s recommendation with one proviso: All increased funding should come in the form of prizes awarded to new systems built and tested and found fit for purpose by one purchasing organisation.