Emis joins forces for London bid

Emis, Graphnet Health and Healthcare Gateway have joined forces to offer clinical information systems and services under the new £300m London 2015 framework.

The framework covers 30 community and mental health trusts in London and the South that got CSE healthcare’s RiO electronic patient record system delivered by BT under NPfIT.

The initiative is in preparation for the end of their national contracts in October 2015.

Emis is one of nine suppliers selected for the framework and was successful in all three lots. These are; the application; hosting services; and integration, interoperability, reporting and portal services.

As primary contractor for lot 3, it will work with subcontractors Graphnet and Healthcare Gateway.

Graphnet provides an integration engine and the CareCentric portal which, in Hampshire alone, pulls and presents data from 152 IT systems.

Healthcare Gateway provides the Medical Interoperability Gateway, which delivers real-time data exchange between different healthcare systems.

The MIG also connects with TPP’s SystmOne, which Graphnet does not.

Emis’ commercial director Matt Murphy said the joint offering provided a more comprehensive, joined-up proposition for trusts using the framework.

The integration with Graphnet was already being piloted with Emis Web customers, who had a button embedded in their clinical system linking to a patient’s shared care record.

“We had already done a lot of the development work so it made sense to join forces,” said Murphy.

“Both Graphnet and the Healthcare Gateway have made all the effort connecting to other suppliers, which means the Emis offering is well ahead in terms of connections with other systems in the community.”

Graphnet executive director Markus Bolton said the combination of systems fulfilled the aim of the framework, which was to provide integrated care across community, acute and primary settings.

He said the trusts in the consortium had mixed views of the installed, legacy base.

“Some have been really successful with existing products such as RiO and are very happy, so for them it’s about integrating data out of RiO and back into it to give a shared record,” he explained.

“But a significant number of trusts are looking to change over. There isn’t a one size fits all.”

Bolton added that a considerable number of other trusts were also looking to join the framework