Two Totalcare sites choose Medway

Two more McKesson Totalcare sites have chosen Medway as their replacement patient administration system.

United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust and Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust have chosen the Medway PAS from System C, a McKesson company.

This means that 11 of the 26 trusts running legacy McKesson Totalcare or Star systems, for which the support contract expires next March, have chosen to deploy Medway.

However, none have yet deployed the Medway PAS leaving the company with a seemingly impossible roll-out schedule of 11 trusts in six months.

United Lincolnshire was previously on track to take CSC’s Lorenzo electronic patient record system offered to trusts in the North, Midlands and East of England as part of a deal between the government and CSC.

However, the trust changed its mind as it was not sure Lorenzo was the right strategic fit and went back to the PAS market. It has decided to implement the Medway PAS, A&E and business intelligence suite.

Michael Humber, the trust’s associate director of ICT, said the hospital staff had been closely involved in the selection process.

“Implementing the Medway PAS and A&E system is our first step towards a full EPR, which will help us to increase our clinical and operational efficiencies and help us to provide a higher quality and safer service to our patients by having a tightly integrated system,” he added.

Sherwood Forest Hospitals awarded a five-year contract to Specialist Computer Systems which will implement the Medway system on behalf of McKesson. This is SCC’s first entry into the PAS market.

Paul O’Connor, Sherwood Forest’s chief executive, said he hoped the PAS would improve the way the trust administered information about patients.

“With exceptional functionality and value for money the new system represents a major stage in the trust’s strategy to build on electronic health records,“ he said.

In May this year McKesson announced its intention to sell McKesson UK, including subsidiaries like System C. The company is due to finalise the sale by the New Year.

EHI recently reported that two of the trusts due to deploy Medway had delayed their go-lives. However, a McKesson spokesperson said the sale had not affected deployments.

Other Totalcare and Star sites that have chosen Medway are: Whittington Health, Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Colchester University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust; North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust; Southend University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust; Barking, Havering and Redbridge Hospitals NHS Trust; Basildon and Thurrock University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust; Sheffield Children’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Nottingham University Hospital NHS Trust.

Only two of the 26 trusts have yet to decide on a system. Southport and Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust hopes to make a decision next month, and Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust will decide “sometime this year."