Cambridge receives 50 bids for EPR

Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has received more than 50 bids from suppliers in response to a tender for a full electronic patient record and associated infrastructure.

The trust lodged a joint tender with Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust earlier this year as part of an eHospital programme.

EHealth Insider reported last October that the trust had committed £280,000 to developing a specification for a new IT system and infrastructure that will be implemented when Papworth Hospital moves onto the Cambridge Biomedical Campus in 2015.

Last week, the trust told EHI that 53 pre-qualification questionnaires had been submitted after the tender placed in the Official Journal of the European Union.

It has decided to take submissions from 16 suppliers further, and is in the process of evaluating them and seeing supplier demonstrations before drawing up a final shortlist.

A trust spokesperson said it hoped a decision on preferred bidders would be made in spring 2012, with implementation work beginning as soon as possible after that.

Both trusts are running legacy patient administration systems from iSoft. However, while Papworth took iPM as an 'interim' system from the National Programme for IT in the NHS, Cambridge opted to steer clear of the programme.

The trust spokesperson said the eHospital vision is one in which “every member of staff will access to the information they need when they need it, without having to look for a piece of paper, waiting to use a computer, logging in and out of separate IT systems, or asking the patient yet again.

“Staff will be able to see a unified view of the patient’s profile – whether it is clinical, administrative or management information they are looking for.”

The infrastructure required for the new IT implementation includes data centres, virtualised servers, networks, PCs, tablets, mobile and remote working devices and 24/7 support and maintenance services.

The tender also stipulated a core electronic patient record with full clinical functionality that will integrate with existing systems in back-office departments, such as financial systems and business intelligence tools.

There is also a requirement to replace more than 400 additional clinical databases or systems at the Cambridge Hospital, and 150 at Papworth.