The South West London Pathology network has chosen CliniSys for a new laboratory information management system.
The network was set-up by St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Croydon Health Services NHS Trust and Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust to support more than two million people in London.
The aim of the collaborative is to provide a single, integrated pathology service across south west London and beyond.
It operates on a ‘hub and spoke’ model, with a main hub laboratory at St George’s Hospital and spoke sites at Croydon and Kingston to manage urgent local work.
The new LIMS will replace the mix of legacy systems used by the different services run out of these labs.
It is expected to be a phased roll-out with the first site to be live this year and then a full roll-out by the end of next year.
Simon Brewer, managing director of South West London Pathology, said “We have a 25-year old LIMS that was never designed to support a network, and we have created so many workarounds that it is no longer sustainable.”
“We need a LIMS that can do a lot more; one that will enable us to further harmonise our workflow and enable us to grow. WinPath Enterprise has already been deployed into large, networked environments, so we are confident that CliniSys can help us to further modernise and streamline our service.”
Donald Saum, business development director at CliniSys, said “South West London Pathology has used an integration strategy to enable information to flow between systems, but there comes a point when you need to take a consolidation approach.”
“That is what WinPath Enterprise will enable the network to do, while also laying the foundations for further consolidation and growth. We are delighted to be working with the network as it takes that next step.”
South West London Pathology was set up in response to a national report on pathology services conducted by Lord Carter of Coles and the Modernising Pathology in London Programme.
The Carter report argued there was a strong case for the consolidation of pathology services, so non-urgent and more specialist work could be carried in laboratories with the staff and resources to ensure high-quality results.
The new LIMS will have to be integrated with the electronic patient record systems used by the different partner trusts; and the seven order communications systems used to order different tests from across the network.
To support the integration, the Rhapsody integration engine that was developed by Orion Health and recently sold to Hg Capital is being layered into the CliniSys solution and will be delivered as part of the contract.
