Business Chief APAC+ANZ Magazine November 2017 | Page 38

ROYAL ADELAIDE HOSPITAL

The new Royal Adelaide Hospital ( new RAH ) is showing the world how technology can vastly improve patient outcomes in a cost-effective manner : automation and data integration work hand-in-hand to get more people well

On 6 September 2017 , the doors finally closed on the much-loved Royal Adelaide Hospital as an honour guard of about 100 staff members gathered outside its Emergency Department , spontaneously cheering and applauding as the last patient was wheeled out the doors and carefully loaded into an ambulance for the trip to the $ 2.3bn new RAH .

This marked the completion of a progressive ‘ soft opening ’ process . Minor surgical procedures and outpatient appointments had been taking place at the new RAH for some weeks to accustom staff to the different systems . As many as possible of the 600 in-patients had transferred to other hospitals . The remainder were moved across at the rate of approximately 100 a day on 4 , 5 and 6 September . The official opening of the new facility can be best placed at 7am on Tuesday 5 September , at which point the old emergency department closed to new admissions and the emergency department of the new hospital simultaneously took over .

It ’ s more than 30 years since a new hospital was commissioned in South Australia , so the opening was always going to be a landmark event for the state ’ s 1.6mn citizens . But the new RAH is much more than added tertiary healthcare capacity . It is the most advanced hospital in the whole of Australia , and the single largest infrastructure project in the history of the State of South Australia . The financing , design , construction and operation of the non-clinical services for the next 35 years was undertaken by SA Health Partnership Consortium ( SAHP ), made up of Hansen Yuncken , Leighton Contractors , Macquarie and Spotless . SAHP , incidentally , has recently rebranded as Celsus . This

38 November 2017