Pennine signs five year iSoft PAS deal

Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust has signed a deal to upgrade its 20 year old patient administration system to the latest version of iSoft’s Patient Centre.

The upgrade should provide additional patient and clinical functionality by improving the clinical information available to staff across its four hospital sites in north Manchester, Bury, Rochdale and Oldham.

The deal will include the installation or trial of a number of web-based clinical applications from iSoft’s new Smart Solutions portfolio including order communications. Hardware will also be upgraded to HP’s latest iTanium hardware to deal with the significant downtime issues that the trust has been experiencing.

Christine Walters talks about the trust’s IT strategy including the reasons behind the PAS upgrade in this week’s video diary.

Christine Walters, Pennine’s Associate director of IM&T, told E-Health Insider: “We’ve had to replace the hardware because it is too old and the upgrade will get around some of the limitations we have had.

“Our Torex PAS wouldn’t allow us to do some simple things like accept mobile numbers as it had run out of fields. We have a really high DNA rate at the hospital so being able to use the PAS to communicate with patients in different ways could make a real difference.”

The trust carried out a review earlier this year to ensure continuity of service at the trust pending the delivery of the National Programme for IT system, Lorenzo, also provided by iSoft under its contract with local service provider, CSC.

Walters said that the five year deal, which has a three year break clause, will prepare the trust for when Lorenzo becomes a viable option and will help staff at the trust get more used to using IT in the meantime.

“The trust’s strategy is still to take Lorenzo when it is due to be delivered in 2013. This is more to get us through the holding situation we are in and is a safety net to ensure our systems are supported,” she explained.

In addition to the PAS upgrade, which should take place before Christmas, the trust will become the first in the NHS to provide a proof of concept for iSoft’s recently launched e-prescribing and medications administration system.

Although the trust has not signed a formal contract with iSoft, it will be working to deploy the system in a small number of wards over the next year.

Adrian Stevens, iSoft’s UK managing director, said: “This exemplifies iSoft’s Smart Solutions Strategy in which best of breed clinical solutions are seamlessly integrated into an overarching electronic patient record.”

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