ISoft has signed a global strategic partnership deal with Picis to provide its high acuity systems to hospitals across the UK, Ireland, Scandinavia, Australia and New Zealand.
In the UK, iSoft will distribute, implement and provide support to customers under the National Programme for IT in the NHS and those using its legacy systems.
In the first instance, iSoft will focus on providing anaesthesia and ICU systems but it will also provide Picis solutions for operating theatres, scheduling and case records.
Todd Cozzens, chief executive of Picis, told E-Health Insider: “Isoft are quite open and honest that they don’t have extensive functionality in critical care and anaesthesia.
"They need to focus on core product issues rather than doing all things, for everyone, in all countries.”
The two companies say the deal was signed following demonstrations of their technical capability and the compatability of their systems at Frimley Park Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Torbay Hospital in South Devon.
Adrian Stevens, managing director of iSoft UK and Ireland said: “We feel our customers would benefit from solutions for anaesthesia and ICU.
“The combination of our strengths will add real value to our installed base of theatre management, clinical record and patient administration across these territories. Under the Lorenzo programme iSoft will enter the high acuity space.”
Picis claims that the alliance has led to “numerous deals in the pipeline” with many of the sites including those that are not yet using systems under the national programme.
“How the partnership applies to NPfIT will be crossed as the programme evolves. As we watch how NPfIT changes, either way we are in good shape as there is a need for a high acuity solution and there hasn’t been a strong application in the UK to date," Cozzens added.
EHI has also learned that Picis has renewed its contract with BT, originally signed in 2006, to provide its theatre system to trusts in London.
The original contract, which was signed as part of an NHS Connecting for Health agreement, was to deploy the system to six trusts. The new, extended contract will cover four of those, with the remaining two in negotiations.
Cozzens said: “We extended the contract in November for another three years. We have a good footprint because we have had a majority of those trusts re-signed to the theatre solution.
“We will be able to extend to anaesthesia and critical care but there is no current funding for that but we foresee that as the programme changes so will the funding.”
Links: iSoft