Above photo: Open dialogue table at the NSW OpenGov Leadership Forum 2017
In May this year, the New South Wales (NSW) government launched its new digital government roadmap to provide the backbone for the delivery of next level, improved, user-centric services. In the foreword to the new strategy, the Hon. Victor Dominello, Minister for Finance, Services and Property said that the former ICT Strategy series provided a strong foundation which was built in consultation with industry partners and across government. Now the government is looking to extend this to a partnership with the community.
(Read our report on the keynote address by Damon Rees, Government Information and Digital Officer, NSW Government laying out the path ahead to achieve a digital NSW Government.)
As NSW embarks on this next exciting stage of the digital transformation journey, OpenGov celebrated the successful stories of the best performing government agencies for achieving excellence in strategies, policies and initiatives, creating a digital NSW Government and working continuously to create better outcomes in the lives of citizens.
The NSW Recognition of Excellence was part of our Recognition of Excellence series. In 2017, ceremonies were held in Singapore, Melbourne, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta and Manila.
Below are the seven agencies recognised by OpenGov (in alphabetical order):
eHealth NSW
OpenGov recognised eHealth NSW for the completion of the Community Health and Outpatient Care (CHOC) programme. CHOC has been implemented across eight services in NSW community health over seven years (2009 to 2016), delivering digital access to a patient’s clinical information across NSW community health and outpatient care services including Aboriginal Health; Aged and Chronic Care; Allied Health; Child, Youth and Family; Community Home Nursing; Sexual Health; Mental Health; and Drug and Alcohol.
The CHOC Programme improves access to clinical information across all sectors of Local Health Districts (LHDs) thereby leading to better patient care. The programme does this by adding functionality to the Electronic Medical Record (eMR) used throughout NSW and
implementing CHIME into selected LHDs, giving clinician across multiple sites timely access to information previously captured on paper.
The CHIME solution is specifically designed for community health with interfaces to various Patient Administration Systems (PAS). It aims to create a 'single view' of the patient in community, facilitate clinical information sharing across community settings and improve patient flow management, while The Cerner (eMR) solution supports tight information integration across care settings and therefore may be more suited to LHDs that prefer common forms/processes across care settings.
NSW Department of Justice
OpenGov recognised the NSW Department of Justice (DOJ) for its innovative ERP consolidation through an adopt-and-adapt approach.
NSW DOJ negotiated an innovative commercial construct with the vendor, with comprehensive transition out scenarios and leveraging shared corporate services standards developed within NSW government, as a pre-blueprinted software- as-a- service solution for ERP.
Part of that innovation included a transparent commercial model for managing customisation. The consumption based pricing model ensured that the organisation took up 90% of the functionality, based on NSW government standards out of the box. The remaining 10% was available customised to enable it to fit the Department’s local business needs, in areas that won’t necessarily be commoditised. This was one of the most rapid ERP implementations, consolidating 8 separate ERPs and multiple solutions.
NSW Department of Planning and Environment
OpenGov recognised NSW Department of Planning and Environment for the under-development online lodgement portal which will launch later this year.
Development applications will take less than 30 minutes with the new portal. Currently, the average time it takes homeowners and builders to investigate, prepare, submit, lodge and track a development application manually is up to 10 days. The new portal would save people time and make the entire development application process easier and more efficient.
It will also allow people to view spatial data about a property online, rather than go to council.
The Department’s planning portal will eventually be a one-stop shop for development applications and complying development certificate submissions.
NSW Government
OpenGov recognised the NSW Government for the launch of the Digital.NSW strategy, setting a clear vision and charting out the path to reach there.
The strategy identifies three priorities and four enablers. ‘Customer experience’, ‘Data’ and ‘Digital on the Inside’ are the three priority elements, which will be embedded in service design, prioritisation and delivery. The four identified enablers are ‘Technology, ‘Cybersecurity’, ‘Legislation’ and ‘Delivery capability’. The initiatives under each of the priorities and enablers are categorised into ‘Experiment’, ‘Start’ and ‘Continue’. It is as much about building on past achievements, as about exploring new avenues and emerging technologies.
Progress will be measured by a range of quantitative and qualitative measures, in addition to using a range of existing reporting mechanisms. Public view of progress will be provided through publication of the Strategy, Digital Government Implementation Plans, and case studies of exemplar digital government projects on the digital.nsw.gov.au website.
Service NSW
OpenGov recognised Service NSW its Digital Licence Platform and Easy to do Business programme.
The Digital License Platform allows customers to view details and conditions of their licence, and renew their licence if required. Changes in details can be updated instantly through the app. The digital licence platform is safer and more secure than physical licence cards. While a licence card may be lost or stolen, digital licences are only accessible via the Service NSW app once the customer has entered a unique passcode.
The Easy to do Business programme has already helped 31 small businesses by replacing 30 government forms with a single online application, connecting them with a case manager and almost halving the amount of duplicated information customers were previously required to provide.
State Library of NSW
OpenGov recognised State Library of NSW for its Transcript Tool and Amplify platform.
The Transcript Tool allows people to to transcribe the text of original manuscripts in the State Library collections. Amplify is an innovative platform that delivers the library’s digitalised audio collections online.
The Digital Projects Team adapted Amplify from the New York City Public Library Lab’s updated open-source based Transcript Editor and customised it to the business requirements of the State Library. One of the favourite features of Amplify is that a user is not required to create an account to start transcribing, allowing for a more spontaneous experience.
The project has initiated many thoughtful and interesting discussions about the potential for doing more with the library’s audiovisual material. Amplify has created refreshed enthusiasm and momentum for tackling the web accessibility issues the library have so long faced in both creative and collaborative ways.
Transport for NSW
OpenGov is recognising Transport for NSW for its Open Data Hub, which was launched at the Future Transport Summit in April 2016 and in less than 12 months the Open Data Hub had more than 4200 registered users. They include data scientists, researchers and developers. The Hub has been accessed over 450 million times and there are more than 1200 applications using the data.
A number of innovation challenges have been held, delivering a fresh set of innovative digital solutions that will improve the experience of the customers. Some of these include:
- Navibaby: A mobile app that provides customers with pram or stroller-friendly routes.
- Anytrip: A mobile responsive web application with a transport map, departure boards and service alerts, which can be used to share real-time information on journeys using an automated Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, SMS or Twitter.
- Learner Driver e-Log: A suite of up to four apps, currently in field test, that allow learner drivers to record their driving hours and upload them to the driver licensing systems.
