Northern HSC Trust goes live with Clinisys Winpath
- 14 November 2024
- Northern Health and Social Care Trust has become the latest organisation in Northern Ireland to go live with Clinisys Winpath
- The deployment took place in late October 2024 as part of the CoreLIMS programme, which was set up to transform pathology services in Northern Ireland
- Phase three of the programme is now complete, with Clinisys WinPath now deployed to three of the five health and social care trusts and the blood transfusion service in Northern Ireland
Northern Health and Social Care Trust has become the latest organisation in Northern Ireland to go live with the Clinisys Winpath laboratory information management system (LIMS).
The deployment took place in October 2024 as part of the CoreLIMS programme, which was set up to transform pathology services in Northern Ireland.
Phase three of the programme is now complete, with Clinisys WinPath now deployed to three of the five health and social care trusts and the blood transfusion service in Northern Ireland.
Northern Health and Social Care Trust went live with the laboratory information management system in blood sciences and microbiology, and the national cervical cytology screening service hosted by Belfast Health and Social Care Trust also adopted the LIMS.
Mike Nesbitt, Northern Ireland health minister, said: “I would like to acknowledge all the teams and individuals involved in the latest, successful implementation.
“Congratulations to the Business Services Organisation CoreLIMS project team and Northern trust laboratory staff for all their hard work and dedication.
“A world class digital healthcare service is at the heart of our future healthcare needs. This will enable us to better manage demand, standardise reporting across the health service, and ensure a better service for patients.”
The pathology transformation programme was set up to create an integrated, regional laboratory service to streamline management, standardise ways of working, modernise working conditions, and improve access for patients.
In the first phase of the project, Belfast Health and Social Care Trust and South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust deployed Clinisys WinPath in December 2023.
In the second phase, the Northern Ireland Blood Transfusion Service migrated from its 15-year-old laboratory information system to CliniSys WinPath in early June 2024.
The completion of phase three means just Southern and Western health and social care trusts still need to go live, which is expected to happen in 2025.
Robin Bell, senior project manager at Clinisys, said the phase three go-lives had gone smoothly due to early efforts in the project to standardise tests, harmonise workflows and test the new LIMS.
“I would also like to thank all the project managers, IT and laboratory staff for their hard work,” he said.
“It is because of the hours they put in upfront that everything went smoothly on the day.
“The success of the latest go-lives with Clinisys WinPath bodes well for the rest of the project, because we will be using the same approach, and the trusts are learning from each other as they go.
“We look forward to completing this programme on time or even ahead of time, and to seeing it improve laboratory and clinical services that will transform patient care in Northern Ireland,” Bell added.
