Peter O'Halloran wins Healthcare CIO of the year

The National Blood Authority’s CIO Peter O’Halloran has been named Healthcare CIO of the year in the Benchmark Awards for the second year in a row.

Peter O'Halloran

After impressing judges and peers alike with an app that allowed sufferers of bleeding disorders to better manage blood inventory in 2015, O’Halloran has taken home another gong in recognition of the innovative and ambitious work he is doing on BloodNet.

BloodNet is the NBA’s nationwide effort to link all of Australia’s pathology labs to its central database to create a single, real-time view of the whole country’s critical blood inventory.

The project is being driven by a need to better manage live-saving blood supplies through shortages and health crises, so Australia’s hospitals are never left in the lurch.

O’Halloran’s team have modified the existing BloodNet platform to enable real-time receipt and processing of data feeds out of the hospital labs via APIs, allowing it to track fresh blood units all the way from the Australian Red Cross Blood Service to their final use, be it a transfusion to a patient or eventual expiry.

Real-time APIs are already allowing 170 hospital laboratories to automatically share their stock data with BloodNet, with additional facilities quickly coming on board. The team is also looking to install electronic dashboards in pathology labs to keep managers up to date with their critical inventory.

Ultimately, O’Halloran and the team want to minimise wastage of critical and expensive blood products, which is currently estimated to cost the country $30 million a year.

"I think, for my mind, this award speaks volumes about the impact we've had on patients and end users," O'Halloran said.

"The most fun I can have at any time is to see the difference IT makes to a person's life, and I'm the frontman of a remarkable team."

A strong healthcare field also included finalists from Cabrini Health, where Judith Day led the roll out of electronic medication management and mobile clinical records, and Australian Unity, where Tahir Tanveer has completed an end-to-end overhaul of customer records delivering a data-driven sales experience.