Three more Lorenzos by autumn

Three more trusts will go-live with Lorenzo Regional Care Release 1.9 over late summer and early autumn, the Department of Health has told E-Health Insider.

The early adopter sites – Birmingham Women’s NHS Foundation Trust, Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust and Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust – have all had significant delays to their go-live dates, after waiting for University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Trust to go live earlier this year.

A spokesperson for the DH said: “The Department of Health understands these three early adopter trusts are planning to deploy Lorenzo Release 1.9 over late summer and early autumn.

“Re-scheduling the next early adopter implementations became necessary when the original deadline for introducing Lorenzo at Morecambe Bay was not met.

“The decisions have been taken by the Department of Health and strategic health authorities in liaison with the trusts concerned and the supplier, CSC."

Pennine Care was meant to go live in November 2009, before pushing back its deployment to June 2010. Kettering was meant to go live in late June with a new PAS and A&E system, and Birmingham Women’s was meant to go-live at the beginning of May.

Both Kettering and Pennine Care refused to comment on when they would be going live, but Birmingham Women’s said it would go-live more than three months after Morecambe Bay.

A spokesperson for Birmingham Women’s NHS Foundation Trust, said: "The trust now has agreed and confirmed a go live date with Lorenzo Care Management as 6 September 2010.

"This is the preferred date of the trust. We are currently undertaking testing to ensure the system is ready and clinically safe to be deployed."

At E-Health Insider Live ’09 last year, iSoft’s then executive chairman and chief executive, Gary Cohen, said that he expected 25 NHS trusts to go-live with Lorenzo over the course of 2010.

EHI understands that Cohen was counting every release of Lorenzo as one deployment; so Morecambe Bay would count as two, as it is live with R1 and R1.9. However, even counting this way, the early adopter go-lives will take the count to just eight.