Bradford goes live with iPM in just six months

Tags: Accenture Bradford CSC Foundation Trust iPM iPM Ipswich iS iSoft LSP PAS PAS Siemens Strategic

03 Apr 2007

Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has successfully deployed the iSoft iPM system in just six months, after striking a deal with Computer Sciences Corporation and Connecting for Health last October.

The trust becomes the first hospital in the North East to go live with a CSC provided iSoft iPM PAS system. CSC took over from Accenture as Local Service Provider for the North East and Eastern clusters in January this year.

In 2006 the trust had abandoned the national programme and gone out to tender for a new patient administration system last July through the Official Journal of the European Union, providing a deadline of March 2007, with work begin in October.

On 27 September, however, the trust announced that it had stopped the procurement and they had signed up a deal with CSC to implement the iSoft iPM PAS in just six months. The deal was underwritten by Connecting for Health with a pledge to meet extra costs for support of the trust’s existing PAS if it failed to meet the date.

A trust spokesperson confirmed to E-Health Insider: “Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has had a successful go-live of its new Patient Administration System.”

The deployment is believed to be the quickest deployment of a PAS to an acute trust yet by CSC, with most systems previously taking up to a year to prepare for a go-live.

Bradford had an urgent need for a new PAS by 1 April as the support from their existing Siemens IRC system was due to come to an end on 31 March.

In February, a trust spokesperson told EHI that work on implementation had been ongoing since the agreement was signed and the trust were able to prepare staff for a smooth go-live on 2 April.

Significantly, the Bradford PAS go-live is the first that CSC has completed in the north-east and eastern clusters, formerly controlled by Accenture.

The trust have told EHI that it would be premature to discuss the implementation in detail until after the Easter holiday, when staff will really get to grips with the new PAS. Full details are due to be released next week.

As EHI reported in February, assuming Bradford’s implementation goes well, three further acute trusts in the former Accenture clusters, Airedale, Ipswich and Northampton General, have said they plan to go live with new systems by the end of April.

A CSC spokesperson confirmed that Bradford had successfully gone live this weekend but said it would be inappropriate to say anything further until the trust is ready to issue a statement.

CSC has previously deployed 13 iSoft iPM PAS systems in acute trusts in the North-West and West Midlands cluster to date.

Now, with their first deployment into the old Accenture clusters, the LSP says it is working with all Strategic Health Authorities to discuss their needs for the forthcoming year and beyond.

Readers Comments

Congratulations

03 Apr 07 08:29

Congratulations Bradford! Such a quick and successful implementation highlights the hard work put in and quality of the Trusts project management team.

What About iSOFT?

03 Apr 07 09:35

Surely some congrats must go to iSOFT too? No - I don't work for them, but having worked in this area within implementations, I know that the provider (in this case iSOFT and CSC) do have a tough jo to do...

13 implementations?

03 Apr 07 12:01

Where has this figure of 13 iSoft iPM PAS systems come from? Surely there are far more than 13 trusts already live!

Let's get this in context

03 Apr 07 12:16

Absolutely. Well done to everyone concerned for the speed with which the project was completed. But for goodness sake let?s get this in context. iPM is an old iSoft system that was available well before NPfIT came on the scene. I can only presume that at the time of the NPfIT procurement it was not considered a good starting point for creating CRS, otherwise why would the development of a totally new system, Lorenzo, have been commissioned. Therefore, in implementing iPM Bradford cannot be said to have made any real advance towards CRS. So what have they achieved? Well, clearly, they have solved their immediate PAS problem, and what is more, done so largely out of CfH?s pocket rather than their own (not that this helps the taxpayer, mind). And for the future? If Lorenzo does ever see the light of day, then Bradford will in effect have another PAS replacement project on its hands; if it does not the trust will have gone up a blind alley. The same is true, of course, for all the trusts in the NWWM Cluster who have taken iPM as an interim measure.

As a postscript, I cannot help wondering how CfH can justify spending its money in 2007 on a system that was rejected in 2003/4 by no less an authority than itself as unsuitable as the basis for CRS.

What About iSOFT?

03 Apr 07 12:52

I would imagine that after so many deployments iSOFT shouldn't have had to do any work specifically for this Project, as their product is in a deployable state and the Trust wouldn't have found any new issues, so we may now truly have a one size fits all solution I'm also assuming the trust may have had to compromise on a few things for such a rapid deployment but these details will be released later. Question is, has this Project set a precedent and can we expect a wave of rapid deployments to resurrect the image of the program? Or upon examination of the detail will we find that this was a unique situation that will not occur often.

Either way a 6 month deployment is a fantastic acheivement for the trust the provider and the software.

Lets get this in context (2)

03 Apr 07 13:24

I think one of the previous commentators has misunderstood. CSC was contracted to provide a set of services within the NWWM cluster based around the iSoft product set. The first few years are around using iPM as the basis of the PAS system.

iSoft had previously decided that it would replace iPM, iCM and its other products over time with Lorenzo, the strategic direction. NPfIT will therefore benefit from Lorenzo as it becomes available.

In the meantime, iSoft has put a lot of work into developing iPM so it meets the wider needs of the service, including improving functionality, information governance, reliability and scalability.

There are 90+ Trusts using the system within the NWWM Cluster, but the majority of them are community or mental health. There are 13 Acute deployments, which are much harder to do.

Was there a 'full' data migration

03 Apr 07 13:40

Out of interest, does anyone know how much historic data was migrated as part of the go live? Was there a 'full' data migration or is this to follow?

The meaning of "live"

03 Apr 07 15:19

Whilst not wishing to detract from Bradford's achievement, it would be informative to understand what is meant by some key words such as "go live", "deployement" and "successfully".

I seem to recall that Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre's "go live" about 18 months ago didn't really stand up to close scrutiny.

Let's not forget

03 Apr 07 15:57

Let's not forget that CfH and CSC could not afford for this implementation to fail. Both money and resources were thrown at this project, other Trusts will not be so fortunate but still be expected to achieve similar results.

Let's not forget Accenture

03 Apr 07 16:28

Lets not forget.This would not have been possible with Accenture - we would still be talking about it or Bradford would have had to buy direct from iSoft. iPM is a trusted and proven solution, but was always considered as the starting point by CSC and a foundation for migration to Lorenzo.

Lets remember Accenture

03 Apr 07 16:56

and that Bradford had already done a huge amount of work before CSC came along with the intention of putting in IPM.

Remember also Bradford where days away from signing for a new pas when npfit came along that was stopped and Bradford got labeled an early adopter for npfit. I am sure that this fed into the CSC process and was completely thrown away. To say that its an implementation in 6 months is not really accurate.

Maybe this article should be titled Bradford finally get a new PAS after starting the replacement process 4 years ago. But i guess that wouldn't sound like such a success.

Well done Bradford and CSC now you just have to get the bits in place that got missed out to hit the go live date.

Lets not forget

03 Apr 07 17:05

Lets not forget that this was paid for by the taxpayer and installing a system that will soon be celebrating its 20th birthday with the hope that one day Lorenzo might be available does not seem like good value for money. Then again given the article in the Times today about Milton Keynes the trust might have made the correct choice.

Lets be honest

04 Apr 07 08:38

This is 1 implementation that neither CSC or CfH could afford to go wrong or be delayed in light of the publicity around the procurement. But well done to the staff at Bradford

Any chance of an apology ...

nhstechie@btinternet.com

04 Apr 07 22:08

... from the 7 people who posted sarcastic and wholly negative comments against the original announcement that this would be done within 6 months?

No? Thought not!

Congrats to everyone involved in this - whether NHS or LSP side, none of whom are responsible for delays and obfuscation elsewhere.

Well Done

05 Apr 07 10:43

A liitle Note to at least give some creDit to You all for such a lightning quick implementation of What seemed An impoSsible task. Thanx must go to tHose who dEdicated and gave up their fReetime and weekends to Ensure the trust did not fall flat on their faces. A really good pat on the backs of those that were there the whole time to make sure it was a smooth course of events.