Bristol shortlists Cerner and System C

University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust has shortlisted System C and Cerner as part of its plans to implement a patient administration and electronic patient record system, eHealth Insider has learned.

The trust went out to tender last October and asked multiple suppliers to bid for a series of lots, inducing accident and emergency, operating theatres, maternity and a clinical portal.

In addition, the tender notice stated that the core PAS solution would be required to cover, among other functions, “patient registration, inpatient care, waiting lists, out-patients, coding, casenote tracking, bed management clinical data collection, referral to treatment pathways, Choose and Book compliance, audit reports.”

Sources have told EHI that five suppliers were shortlisted initially: IMS Maxims, CSC with a system from iSoft, Agfa, Cerner and System C, with the final shortlist consisting of the latter two.

The trust planned to implement Cerner under the National Programme for IT in the NHS in 2009, hoping that the benefits of an integrated, national Cerner solution would be realised by 2011.

Its 2007-12 IT strategy also said that the trust planned to implement a domain solution – in which two or more trusts share the same hardware and database – with North Bristol NHS Trust.

People working close to the project also say that in the light of the latest round of NHS reforms, the trust is in discussion with North Bristol about a possible merger. North Bristol is due to go-live with Cerner Millennium as part of the national programme in November.

Stephen Hann, clinical systems programme director declined to comment on the shortlisted suppliers but said: “As planned, we are in the dialogue phase at this time and current plans are to conclude by the end of April.”