‘No believable plan’ for completion of iSoft Lorenzo

A confidential review of iSoft’s release schedule has revealed that there are no immediate prospects for the completion and delivery of the Lorenzo electronic patient record software, the key patient software for three out of five regions of the £12.4bn NHS IT programme.

The EPR was first meant to be delivered to two-thirds of the NHS starting from 2004. Now, the earliest date that the first hospitals are due to get the Lorenzo system is 2008 – a schedule that has repeatedly slipped by 300%.

The document, which was produced by iSoft’s prime contractors Computer Sciences Corporation and Accenture, claims there remains no credible release schedule and the clinical safety of the product is a critical concern. It is highly critical of iSoft and the Lorenzo product, which iSoft has in annual reports described as being available since 2004.

According to the Guardian, an analysis of the “deliverability and fitness for purpose” of iSoft’s Lorenzo clinical software concluded that there is “no believable plan for delivery” for the next generation clinical software product. 

To add to the confusion, both the company and CfH refer to recent NHS Connecting for Health (CfH) implementations of its older iPM patient administration product – with limited elements of the new Lorenzo system – for CSC in the North-west and West Midlands as ‘Lorenzo’ sites.

But beyond a basic version of Lorenzo that had been tailored for GPs, the CSC/Accenture review found “there is no well-defined scope and therefore no believable plan for releases.”

The Guardian reports that iSoft had sent the review’s authors a series of release dates for different versions of Lorenzo and said the final, fully functional version would not be available until the second quarter of 2008.

“These releases must be viewed as ‘indicative at best’ and are likely to be highly optimistic,” the report concludes.

There are 39 outstanding issues relating to Lorenzo, 13 of which it identifies as red – requiring immediate work.

Among these critical concerns were clinical safety and iSoft’s ability to plan and estimate how long its software development would take.

There was “no evidence for the development, nor testing of, technical procedures that would be required for operation and maintenance of the system… this is the main risk to the successful delivery of a fit-for-purpose system.”

In a statement to E-health Insider iSoft confirmed that a joint reveiw had been undetraken by CSC and Accenture. "Following this it was agreed that Lorenzo had significant potential as a strategic solution for the NHS, and broadly the solution aligned to NPfIT functional requirements."   iSoft added: "Since then, a joint action plan was prepared and has been implemented."

A spokesperson for CSC said: "As an integral part of this plan, CSC has seconded a substantial number of staff to work with iSoft on the further development of Lorenzo and enhance the end-to-end development process. That collaboration has been working extremely well and CSC have reaffirmed their commitment to working together with iSoft."

An Accenture spokesperson said: “The joint report by CSC and Accenture was conducted in February 2006 and focused on assessing the status of the development process and developing a course forward for iSoft’s Lorenzo product. Since that time Accenture, NHS CFH, CSC and iSoft have worked together to enhance the development process.”

Accenture and CSC are the prime contractors to the CfH programme, responsible for managing the delivery of sub-contractors such as iSoft. In March Accenture made $450m provision for losses against its two CfH contracts, partly citing delivery delays from iSoft. In July Accenture’s chief executive indicated the company was examining alternative software suppliers.