The sum was announced by Health Minister Ayesha Verrall last Friday, along with the decision to restore $10million to the project, which was subject to a $90million design cutback in December.
Dr Verrall told the Otago Daily Times on Wednesday that the Budget 2022 allocated $225million over ten years to fund the digital transformation of the new Dunedin Hospital.
"The $97million is the first release of this funding," she said.
The funding was separate to the existing budget for the New Dunedin Hospital — now $1.68billion — and was specifically to complete digital requirements for the new outpatient building.
"Clinicians will be able to access more of the information they need from the electronic clinical portal rather than a paper medical chart, enabling them to access information immediately, from anywhere, and allowing multiple clinicians to access the same information at once."
A Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand spokesman said the new build was an opportunity to lay the foundations for a fully digital experience.
The cabling, network switches and physical hardware to support the Wi-Fi needed to be part of the physical build, the spokesman said.
This would result in safety gains and workflow and time savings.
"The costs, however, are not exorbitant and will create savings in other areas that can be offset."
Traditional booking and communication options would still be available.
"There is a degree of computerisation already in our hospitals; having a reliable and secure system is critical to allowing the hospital to run 24/7 even through a majority of natural disasters."
