Isle of Man chooses System C for major contract

System C has won a £7.5m contract to provide an integrated island-wide healthcare IT service in the Isle of Man.

The contract was won against stiff competition with senior sources confirming reports that iSoft and Cerner, contractors to provide systems for the NHS in England, were in the running.

Nobles Hospital in Douglas and the Isle of Man’s community services will receive an integrated Clinical Care Support Service (CCSS) serving all care settings. The contract runs over seven years but the bulk of the software is expected to be delivered in 2007/8.

System C has been best known in recent years for offering implementation services to the National Programme for IT in England but its own products are used quite widely and the firm has continued to develop them.

Director, Markus Bolton, told E-Health Insider: “We’ve spent a lot of time on the product because we have always felt that there were a lot of product opportunities available. We believe Scotland and Ireland will be opening up significantly.”

He continued: “We expected to win because when there have been large procurements we have frequently won.”

Previous wins for the company include a £14m contract at Swindon and a £5m contract for the Christie Hospital, Manchester.

The work in the Isle of Man will include the provision of the MedWay electronic patient record system to the Nobles Hospital to manage clinical and administrative needs. MedWay comprises a patient administration system and clinical workstation with test results, orders, clinical noting, correspondence, integrated X-ray viewing, clinical data collection and analysis.

System C will also provide a range of integrated departmental solutions including document tracking, maternity, pharmacy, theatres, prescribing and accident and emergency. Its HealthData Manager suite will provide statistical and management reporting facilities. Links to both new and existing systems will be provided using Orion’s Rhapsody interface engine. This will enable clinicians working across the island to gain access to electronic care pathways via the CCSS.

The community aspects of the CCSS programme will include social services, community (GP and pharmacy services), mental health applications and an ambulance system.

All the islands healthcare systems will be linked using a master patient index and an island-wide electronic health record.

Bolton says a particular feature of the implementation will be the tight integration of systems. He cited the example of the integration with the Eclipse maternity system which enables users to enter maternity details or view X-rays directly from MedWay screens.

Roger Godfrey, consultant oral and maxillofacial surgeon at Nobles Hospital, said: “We chose System C because they understood the island’s requirements and showed us a product set which closely matched what we needed. The way System C has integrated the various components of the solution will allow us to bring on board different departments in a manageable way over the next couple of years. We are very pleased to have found such a proactive and knowledgeable partner.”