Teething problems with the Otago District Health Board's new computer system must be resolved so board members can tell if services are on track, chairman Errol Millar said on Thursday.
The board was riding a fine line on its overall performance and he considered if the board had "not got the ship going in the right direction" by Christmas, it could be difficult to meet the requirements of its district annual plan by the end of the financial year in June.
The board was "flying a wee bit blind", he told the board's monthly meeting, and it was difficult for members to make judgements and monitor the organisation's performance.
Chief executive Brian Rousseau said staff were working systemically and vigorously to ensure the period of uncertainty about the accuracy of reports being generated through the new system was as short as possible.
The new system was not an updated version of the old one, so the 3000 reports generated under the old system were not just transferred to the new system, but had to be built up.
About a third of those reports were being produced, but this reduction was not permanent.
"We couldn't do all 3000 at once."
The new system had many more interactions with other systems used by the hospital.
It was much more complex and it would take time before the full benefits of the change would be evident.
Board member Dr Branko Sijnja said one of the issues for general practitioners was they no longer received daily information about their patients in Dunedin Hospital.
Chief operating officer Vivian Blake said priorities had to be set, and the highest priorities were ensuring patient information for clinics was correct and getting required data to the Ministry of Health to secure funding.
The $4 million patient information system was introduced in July.
Deputy chief executive Lexie O'Shea said similar issues to those being experienced in Otago had occurred when Southland introduced the system, and it had taken up to nine months to sort out difficulties.
The system was "incredibly sensitive" to slight changes and that could make retrieving information difficult.
Deputy chairwoman Susie Johnstone said the issue had been discussed extensively at the hospital advisory committee meeting and it was clear the problem was not that the data was absent, but that it was difficult to extract.
Mrs Blake said she would be presenting a report to the next meeting of that committee outlining the timeline for resolving the issues.
In the past three weeks, staff had already come a long way with regard to the accuracy of reporting, she said.
