Opinion: Health IT needs critical care

Prior to Madden's appointment, IT strategy had been left to the chief operating officer of DOHA's business group, Margaret Lyons, with the assistance of several third party consultants and advisory groups including IT Newcom, Gartner and Preemptive Consulting.

It paid $5.5 million for a VoIP solution over the same network with $1 million per year maintenance fees - which climbs to a further $2000 per seat. It also paid $770,000 for the rollout of an adjoining wireless LAN.

The case of the ATO

In the case of the ATO, incumbent supplier HP won back the business - perhaps for many of the same reasons DOHA has stuck with IBM - but the business was nonetheless contested.