WA Department of Health hunting for CIO

The Western Australian Department of Health has finally commenced a search for a permanent CIO, after five years of uncertain IT leadership with only acting CIOs at the top.

The listing calls for a full-time candidate for a fixed-term appointment of up to five years.

According to the job description, the successful applicant will oversee a range of support services including state-wide ICT, supply management, and corporate and human resource management across the department.

The job is a Service Level 3 role and has an annual salary of $185,098 per annum.

WA Health has over the past five years had four interim CIOs — Alan Piper, Dr Andrew Robertson, Bill Leonard and Michael D’Souza. Each applicant has faced difficulties providing the IT leadership needed within the limitations of an interim role.

In April, WA Parliament’s education and health committee chastised the department for its lack of permanent IT leadership, stating that this state of affairs contributed to the difficulties in managing ICT that lead to a six-month, $120 million delay in opening the Fiona Stanley Hospital.

“In our view, such a sustained string of acting appointments is undesirable, particularly when [the department’s IT branch] was supposed to be leading its most ambitious and challenging program of work undertaken to date,” the committee said in a report.

“Dedicated leadership was needed in this period more than ever, yet this was compromised by the failure to appoint a permanent head for HIN.”

Image courtesy of DLG Images under CC