Northumbria picks Silverlink PAS

EHealth Insider understands that Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has chosen Silverlink Software to supply it with a patient administration system at the end of a tender process that started last year.

Neither the trust nor the company have confirmed the deal. However, sources have told EHI that Stalis will implement the Silverlink system.

Trust board papers say a supplier has been chosen and contracts are being finalised. The deal is expected to be fully signed off next month.

Northumbria has been running McKesson’s Totalcare since 1998, but went out to tender for an interim PAS in 2006.

It stopped the procurement when it was promised that it would be next trust in line for Lorenzo; the much-delayed iSoft system that CSC is trying to deploy across the North, Midlands and East.

Because of the delays, the government signed a four year support deal for the 21 trusts still running Totalcare and STAR last January.

Since then, McKesson – which had considered bringing its Paragon system to the UK - has acquired System C and its Medway suite of clinical and administrative software.

EHI understands that the final choice at Northumbria came down to McKesson’s System C offering and the Silverlink system.

The decision to go with Silverlink makes Northumbria the first McKesson trust to choose an alternative PAS since the company acquired System C.

However, the decision may be a vote of confidence in a local supplier, as Silverlink is based less than two miles away from the trust’s headquarters in Newcastle Upon Tyne.

The trust’s tender said that it wanted a PAS with additional functionality to be implemented from 2012 onwards.

It stated that the trust would require an A&E module, bed management, maternity reporting, case note tracking. It further said that any system should be 18 weeks referral to treatment time and Choose and Book compliant.

The trust also wanted a system that would integrate with its Rhapsody integration engine, supplied by Orion Health, and link to legacy clinical systems running within the trust.

The trust’s IT strategy sets out plans to implement a ward management system to record patient notes from next year, with a summary electronic medical record coming later.