East Sussex sticks with Oasis

East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust has awarded a 10-year contract to Oasis Medical Solutions to supply and support its patient administration system.

The contract starts on 1 April when the trust’s contract with Siemens for a previous version of the Oasis PAS expires.

The new system will be implemented across all wards and departments and will include electronic whiteboards, dashboards, online clinical coding, real-time reporting and an option for self-service kiosks.

Sarah Goldsack, associate director of knowledge management at East Sussex, said the trust has been “very satisfied” with the Oasis PAS, but the version used under its contract with Siemens, “restricted us somewhat in our development path towards EPR”.

“The forthcoming contract expiry gave us the opportunity to reconsider and completely re-specify our requirements of PAS functionality and for us to offer the opportunity to the wider NHS IT market.”

She said the new contract will provide interfaces for secure clinical correspondence and discharge summaries, which will make a difference when it comes to a commissioner choosing a secondary care provider.

“Among our new requirements was PAS functionality in relation to departmental or ward whiteboards; information dashboards; the possibility of additional ‘PAS Plus’ modules such as outpatient kiosks; and embedded clinical coding functionality.

“Oasis Medical Solutions was able to tick all those boxes as well as being able to demonstrate that this functionality was currently available from them, and being used elsewhere in NHS hospitals,” Goldsack added.

EHI reported in September 2012 that East Sussex was looking to spend more than £50m on IT over the next five to seven years. The trust’s IT strategy included investment of £35m in strategic projects including an electronic patient record system.

Financial constraints meant the strategy was not passed by the board and is now being revised. However, the trust is still aiming to develop a full EPR over time.

It recently went out to tender, in collaboration with Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Queen Victoria NHS Foundation Trust, for an electronic document management system and a clinical portal.

The collaborative procurement is supported by central funding because the trusts are part of a large group in the South that received nothing under the National Programme for IT.

East Sussex has an annual turnover of £360 million and employs more than 7,500 staff.