West Suffolk to spend £12.5m on EPR

West Suffolk Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is looking to spend £12.5m on a single integrated electronic patient record system.

A tender published in the Official Journal of the European Union says the trust is looking for a patient administration system as well as systems for: maternity; order communications and results reporting; assessments and observations; e-prescribing and medicines administration; and clinical noting.

West Suffolk is also looking to procure a patient portal and a clinical portal including GP and community access.

It plans to spend £12.5m for core requirements over ten years, with an option to extend the contract for a further five years in yearly periods.

“In addition, the core system should be capable of expansion to provide functionality currently provided by specialist departmental systems interfaced to the existing patient administration system,” the tender says.

“As contracts for these systems expire, the intention is to expand the core EPR system to incorporate their functionality, where possible, rather than replace them directly with new standalone departmental systems.”

Systems suitable for optional replacement include theatres, accident and emergency and radiology.

“A single integrated solution is required, preferably from a single supplier, to enable clinicians to access an increasing set of clinical information over time. All suppliers must undertake to work with other trust suppliers to achieve the required standard of integration,” the tender adds.

Suppliers must submit requests to participate by 27 August and the contract will be awarded in April 2014.