System C wins Camp Bastion EPR contract

The Army will use System C’s Medway software for the MoD Medical Treatment Facility at Camp Bastion, the main British military base in Afghanistan.

The Medical Treatment Facility is the main unit that receives and treats British and NATO military casualties from the frontline, before they are sent onwards to the UK.

Situated in Helmand Province, Camp Bastion’s military hospital treats civilians and Afghan nationals, as well as multi-national military personnel working across the country.

Logica is the prime contractor in a project that should see the new Medway EPR go live in Camp Bastion early in 2011.

System C will provide its Medway electronic patient record, clinical and patient management applications at both Camp Bastion and at the Army Medical Services Training Centre at Strensall, near York.

In York, medical military personnel train using a replica of Camp Bastion’s Medical Treatment Facility, before being deployed to Afghanistan.

Dr Ian Denley, chief executive of System C, said the company was proud to be selected for such an important job.

“We are very pleased to have an opportunity to help support British and NATO troops in the role they are playing in Afghanistan," he said.

System C will initially be supplying software for specialist applications such as bed management, clinical support tools, emergency department, intensive care, order communications, reporting, and patient administration.

Denley told EHI that the implementation at Camp Bastion created unique challenges.

“We’ve got guys going out at the end of the month and we’ve had to buy them flak jackets and they might be going in by Hercules.”

Despite the obvious dangers Denley says the company has not been short of volunteers for the unique software implementation.

“We’ve had to send staff on military familiarisation and they will all be covered by the Geneva convention,” he added.

“Technically, the installation also has to be very robust as there is no direct communications links into Bastion.

"We can’t just remotely dial into the server if a problem occurs and it’s a long way to send someone out with a software patch."

He said that the demonstration process had been very different from those System C was used to with NHS clients.

“At one point it involved a sergeant major calling out “incoming casualties”, “Lyn helicopter inbound”, to simulate in real time the scenarios it had to be used in.”

Denley said that the procurement process began at EHI Live 2009, when the Army Medical Services began a procurement process, that involved “most of the players you’d expect”.

He declined to comment on contract value, but said: “The Army Medical Services’ contract award shows that Medway is a highly credible, scalable product that’s been re-engineered from the ground up.”