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Matthew Vella
A UK National Health Service trust has abandoned plans to implement iSoft’s patient administration system after delays hampered the installation of the software.
In a fresh blow to the troubled healthcare IT group iSoft, one of the two finalists for Mater Dei’s EUR30 million IT system, the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust abandoned plans to implement its patient administration system.
The independent trust announced it will seek “an alternative solution” after delays hampered the installation of the system.
The Sheffield trust said it took the decision because a number of requirements had not been met before the system was due to go live in June this year, to replace three systems in place at various hospitals as part of the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) to put all UK patients’ records on computer.
This is the third NHS trust to abandon the implementation of the iSoft system. A spokesman for iSoft pointed out to The Daily Telegraph that the trust had suspended the contracts with Accenture, which had contracted iSoft to deliver the software.
iSoft is a finalist for the contract for Mater Dei’s integrated health system, which is expected to be in place by December 2006, six months before Mater Dei hospital is officially inaugurated. The other bidder is AME consortium, which includes Italian firm Inso SpA, which supplies Mater Dei’s medical equipment.
The jury is still out on which of the two companies will be entrusted with the job to install the IT system at Mater Dei.
However iSoft already supplies St Luke’s hospital with its Clinicom software, the same system it is proposing for Mater Dei, MaltaToday is informed.
Elsewhere in the UK, Clinicom is the very software iSoft is expected to replace with a unified patient administration system. Sheffield was in fact due to go live with the iSoft system to replace the three systems currently in use – iSoft Clinicom, and McKesson’s TotalCare and TPA – with a single system. The new iSoft system had been due to be implemented by Accenture by no later than mid-October.
Financial experts Gartner, who are the consultants for the Maltese government on the IT tender for Mater Dei, recently revised their vendor rating on iSoft downwards to “caution”, after profit warnings and a change in accounting policy saw iSoft’s share price fall by 90 per cent since January 2006.
Gartner have stated that iSoft’s reduced profitability could impair its ability to accelerate work on the IT project for the NHS, for which it is the main supplier of software.
iSoft also faces the possibility of a formal investigation after irregularities were uncovered in the software company’s accounts.
Back in January, iSoft announced its full-year revenues would be below expectations due to the “rescheduling” on the NPfIT. In June 2006, iSoft announced a change in accounting policies which would cut its revenues by about GBP70m in 2005 and GBP55m in 2004. CEO Tim Whiston resigned soon after.
iSoft must now present its preliminary full year results by 25 August, or risk having its shares suspended on the London Stock Exchange.
mvella@mediatoday.com.mt
Links:
www.maltatoday.com.mt/2006/08/13/t12.html
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