A collaborative procurement by two trusts in south west England has resulted in a contract for Carestream Health to provide its picture archiving and communications and radiology information systems to both.
Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust and Yeovil District Hospital NHS Foundation Trust were part of an eight-trust consortium formed to procure new PACS/RIS ahead of the end of the national contracts placed by the National Programme for IT in the NHS.
However, when five of the trusts announced in August that they had chosen Insignia Medical Systems for their PACS, it emerged that the two trusts had decided to pursue an alternative.
The two trusts ultimately used a framework contract drawn up by NHS Supply Chain to purchase the systems from Carestream.
Simon Rigby, head of clinical support for Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Improving the patient experience and improving patient care are key strategic goals for my trust.
"Carestream Health will deliver many clinical and administrative benefits to support these goals."
Charles McCaffrey, managing director of Carestream Health UK, told EHI Imaging Informatics that the installation is due to be handed over in June 2013.
“It’s really going to be a flagship installation for Carestream. We’re really excited about it and we hope it’s going to evolve into a reference site.”
He explained that the trusts, though initially part of the Peninsula procurement, felt their needs would be better served by going through the NHS Supply Chain Framework.
He understands it is the first procurement of its type to be done through the framework, with a new installation of a new PACS and RIS replacing an NHS Connecting for Health installation.
The contract for the PACS runs for seven years, with an option to extend for three years. The RIS contract runs for five years with an option to extend for five years.
There are two major hospitals in the collaborating trusts – Musgrave Park Hospital, Taunton, and Yeovil District Hospital – but McCaffrey said the solution could be extended to other sites, if needed.
Carestream says the new systems will allow the two trusts to work collaboratively, using Global Worklists to achieve the significant efficiencies offered by cross-site working and reporting.
The installation will include Carestream Vue Motion zero footprint viewing capability and Carestream Vue Archive.
The company says the latter will enable staff across both trusts to gain secure, real time access to complete patient records via a patient-centric vendor neutral archive with a universal viewer.
Another feature, My Vue, will also be incorporated into the system to enable patients to access images.
The Carestream Vue RIS will run on the latest V11 software, which provides colour-coded interfaces and offers individual views of the interface according to user requirements, wherever users are located across the two trusts.
The new software version will enhance information sharing, particularly the ability to collaborate seamlessly across multiple sites and multiple clinical specialties.
The EHI Intelligence NHS Trust Database shows that the trusts are currently using GE Healthcare Centricity PACS and HSS’s CRIS radiology information system; in common with other Southern trusts running NPfIT-era PACS/RIS.