Doncaster renews hunt for new PAS

Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has re-tendered for a new patient administration system.

The original tender was issued in June last year, but the procurement was stopped after it failed to generate sufficient competition to allow the process to continue.

The latest tender says that the trust is seeking a PAS that will “include a clinical-user friendly patient management system which encompasses a proven PAS and A&E system with integrated process and patient workflow.”

The trust hope the procurement process will build the foundations for its long-term vision of a “paperless hospital.”

The tender suggests that the trust is looking for a “core solution” that will include a master patient index and scheduling, booking, registration and patient booking functionality that can integrate with Choose and Book, enable the trust to track targets, and introduce patient kiosks and whiteboards.

It says it may then extend its solution to include other functionality, including clinical noting, a portal, document management and integrated care pathways.

The tender says the solution may be delivered “as a single system or a suite of tightly integrated systems” using two-way HL7 messaging.

If a portal is provided, it should “include patient-context sensitive access to multiple systems, initially within the trust but potentially extending to other systems…”

The tender says any supplier must also be able to provide: data migration; project management; technical implementation; integration services; training; ongoing support and maintenance.

And it says they must be able to show that their system is already installed successfully, in a full and live environment at an acute hospital in the UK.

The deadline for tenders or requests to participate is midday, 16 April, and for the process to continue there will need to be a minimum of two bids.

Doncaster is one of a number of trusts running McKesson legacy patient administration systems that are running procurements at the moment.

Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, another McKesson site that cancelled a tender recently, says it is working with a consultant on a new procurement.

Some of the issues facing smaller trusts that need to tender for new IT systems as the National Programme for IT in the NHS winds down are explored in this week’s Insight section.