The Government of Saskatchewan is set to spend over $20 million on a new IT software project, raising alarms from the Offical Opposition.
At this year’s Human Services Committee, the Sask. Party admitted that they are pursuing yet another new $25.7 million software program – MiCase – for the Saskatchewan Income Support program to make up for the shortcomings of the Linkin software.
The Sask. NDP said this follows investments into faulty IT software costing taxpayers hundreds of millions.
Just six months ago, the Administrative Information Management System (AIMS) was put on pause after a faulty rollout that saw numerous bugs.
Since being shut down, no update has been provided from the Government, and the AIMS website says, “This pause is temporary and further communication will be provided, with more information on when the team anticipates that the implementation of the system will proceed.”0
“The AIMS software program in healthcare was meant to streamline scheduling and payroll,” Mowat said. “It was a faulty rollout. It was supposed to help with things, but it’s been a disaster from day one, and it ended up only being out for about a week before they returned to previous systems.”
Mowat said with no update from the Government since November, it looks like a waste of over $100 million.
“The taxpayers are now stuck with a $138 million bill, and our hospitals aren’t any better off as a result of this,” she said. “The Sask. Party has been trying to sweep it under the rug, but this is a clear pattern of behaviour with this Government. Over the last few years, they’ve lost hundreds of millions of dollars on faulty IT software.”
The AIMS rollout reminds the Offical Opposition of another botched IT system in Linkin. It was in 2009, the Sask. Party announced that they would introduce Linkin to “help ministry staff respond to the needs of children and youth in care.” Originally projected to cost $15 million, the program ballooned to $75.9 million as of March 2022.
Mowat said another concern is the lack of transparency the Government has revealed about the botched rollout.
“There’s been a tremendous lack of transparency around what the challenges are, specifically with AIMS,” she said. “There is this tendency toward hiding the reality from people when these mistakes happen rather than admitting the mistakes and working through them publicly.”
She added that without knowing the issues regarding the AIMS situation, it’s hard to tell whether or not they should continue with the AIMS program.
Mark Anderson, the CEO of 3sHealth, who oversees the implementation of AIMS, said that the administrative overhaul is an investment in the province’s health system.
“The project team is approaching work on these administrative systems with great care. The priority is to hear from front-line users and others who have expertise in this type of integrated system work and to conduct extensive performance testing so the team is confident the system is working.”
“When the assessment of user feedback and resulting system changes have been made, the health system will then discuss the implementation,” he added.
