Lewisham picks Cerner for EPR

Lewisham Healthcare NHS Trust has picked Cerner as the preferred supplier of its new electronic patient record system.

It is the company’s first EPR contract win in the NHS since Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust signed a deal with University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre to deliver the Cerner Millennium system in mid-2009.

InterSystems and Cambio were the other two top bidders. A spokesperson for the trust confirmed that a preferred bidder has been selected, but declined to comment further until contracts are finalised.

Last November, Lewisham embarked on a major integration project to provide the foundation for an EPR deployment.

The trust said at the time that it was planning to deploy a core electronic patient record, with interfaces to the PAS systems.

Lewisham is one of the iSoft 7 trusts that earlier this year signed a four-year extension with CSC for the iSoft patient administration system.

EHealth Insider could not get confirmation of what will happen to this contract when Cerner is deployed, but the implication is that Millennium will integrate with iPM for a time.

The EPR tender document, released last December, said the trust was procuring a patient master index and that a replacement acute PAS and enterprise-wide scheduling would be part of an optional procurement.

“An integrated solution is required, whether from a single supplier or multiple suppliers, to enable clinicians to access an increasing set of clinical information over time,” it explained.

“All suppliers must undertake to work with other trust suppliers to achieve the required standard of integration.”

The EPR will include: order communications and results reporting; e-prescribing and medicines management; clinical documentation; social and medical alerting; care pathway workflow, clinical decision support and clinical analysis tools.

The trust was also seeking to optionally procure a theatre management system and sterile supplies management system; and other clinical systems including anaesthetics, A&E, maternity, radiology.

Another optional module is a replacement community clinical and administrative system – including child health.

Lewisham Healthcare NHS Trust was formed in 2010 through the merger of University Hospital Lewisham and local community services. It has 3,400 staff.

The tender said Lewisham was also looking for provision of implementation services including data migration, project management, technical implementation, interfacing and integration, change management and benefits realisation, training, documentation, support and maintenance.

“The trust is looking for strategic partners whose chosen solutions must be adaptable or extendable to meet the future needs of the trust in building towards an electronic patient record and, potentially, in meeting other elements of its current information management & technology strategy,” it said.

Lewisham also has ambitious plans to create a borough-wide virtual patient record with GPs and social care.

Trust board minutes from May this year say the finance and investment committeereviewed the outline business case for the virtual patient record and “highlighted the need to ensure the reliability of the cash releasing saving identified within this.”

Trust records also show Lewisham paid CSC £500,000 for “IT system support” in June this year.