Change at the top for System C/McKesson

Markus Bolton, the co-founder of System C, and Dr Ian Denley, its chief executive, will leave the company in July, fifteen months after its acquisition by McKesson.

Charmaine McDonald, chief operating officer of System C/McKesson in the UK, told eHealth Insider their departure was planned and paid a warm tribute to both men.

“From the outset it was recognised that they have been very successful in building System C through its entrepreneurial phase, and turning it into a leading force in the patient administration system and electronic patient record market,” she said.

“Now, McKesson is happy to be taking over, and taking that work forward. I personally, and McKesson as a company, wish them well. I am sure they will go on and do other very interesting things.”

Bolton co-founded System C with Andy Williams in 1983. The company entered the healthcare market in 1994, and developed, sold and implemented hospital systems to a number of NHS trusts before the National Programme for IT in the NHS was established in 2002.

Dr Denley was appointed chief executive the following year. Through the NPfIT years, the company focused on implementing systems for its local service providers, while maintaining its suite of Medway PAS and EPR products, and working on one, big, integrated healthcare project on the Isle of Man.

System C was bought by McKesson for £87m in May last year, in a move that was widely seen as a bid to combine System C’s strength in PAS, EPR and implementation with McKesson’s PACS, specialist systems and superior resources as the healthcare IT market started to open up again.

McKesson has its own customer base in NHS, with 27 trusts running Star and Totalcare systems. However, these will come to the end of their lives in March 2014, when a Department of Health deal to support them expires.

McDonald said work is going on to integrate the ‘back office’ functions of the two companies, which will be fully integrated “in the fullness of time.”

She pointed out that the acquisition presents opportunities for the Star and Totalcare teams, “who will have a future in the part of the business that they know best.”

And she expressed confidence that System C/McKesson will persuade some of its Star and Totalcare customers to “upgrade” to System C products.

“Some of our customers are excited and ready to go forward with that,” she said. “Others made other plans before the acquisition of System C, because they did not think that McKesson would have a product for them.”

Analysis by EHI Intelligence (PDF) suggests that four of the legacy sites have already signed contracts for alternative systems, while 13 have put out tenders for new systems. The latest of these trusts, Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals, holds a briefing day for suppliers on Thursday.

McDonald said McKesson was also bringing in additional resources to develop System C’s products, and was confident that the combined company would win new business from large and medium-sized trusts.

“We are going to be selling across the piece,” she said. “We are seeing some large trusts coming to us and we are getting some trusts in the medium-sized range.

“We are also seeing the NHS start to go through a lot of consolidation that will create larger and medium-sized organisations. I am not sure how many small organisations will be left.”

Two trusts are due to go-live with System C/McKesson systems in the coming months. University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust is due to go live with its Medway PAS and a number of EPR modules in April.

And Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust is due to go-live with the first steps in a seven-year EPR project “at the end of June”, a trust spokesperson told EHI earlier this week.