Public procurement notice: Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notice
Published: 2022-12-27
Buyer: SYKEHUSINNKJØP HF
Country: NO
Contract type: Supplies
Procedure: Contract award without prior publication
CPV classification: 48100000 | 48180000 | 48329000 | 48814000: Medical information systems
Estimated value: 25700000 NOK

Technical requirements: Voluntary ex-ante transparency notice: System for digital pathology for the health trusts in the South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority
The contract is for the procurement of a specialist system for digital pathology for use in the health trusts in the South Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority.
The Norwegian Hospital Procurement Trust is publishing this voluntary ex-ante transparency notice on behalf of the South Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority.
Digital pathology involves (glass)sections of tissue samples being photographed with high quality cameras in special scanners and made into digital pictures. These pictures, which are in high resolution with a file size of more than 1GB, are made available for the pathologist, and can be shown and examined on a monitor instead of the traditional method of examining a section under a microscope.
A specialist system for digital pathology is a computer system that in general gives the pathologists access to different tools they examine and interact with the pictures. The digital pathology system ensures connection with special scanners and with the system that supports the work with the tissue samples, it supports work flow and cooperation with storing, retrieving, sharing, and showing the pictures to other pathologists and clinicians.
In order to be able to offer a specialist system for pathology that best enables sharing of and interaction with digital pathology objects, the South Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority believes that the specialist system for digital pathology must come from the same supplier as the existing regional multimedia system where the digital pathology media objects will be saved and archived.
The total value of the procurement is an estimate of the expected procurements and maintenance over 4 years.
The South Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority procured a regional multimedia system from Sectra in autumn 2020, with a procurement obligation for all health trusts in the region. The multimedia system is used for saving and sharing multimedia objects in the region. Digital pathology (DP) is defined as multimedia by HSØ, and digital pathology media objects must be saved and archived in the multimedia system, with ambitions on sharing and interaction so that the patient receives the best treatment.
Digital pathology is an advanced and complex area that is relatively early in its development process. The current systems are largely proprietary  and supplier-dependent, where the final user and integration tool and archive/storage system is delivered from the same supplier. Until standardisation is the norm, HSØ believes that there will be major challenges with developing a system where the DP specialist system and the multimedia archive are delivered by different suppliers. This includes two concrete challenges:
Read access for clinicians gives a need for double storage and the use of several viewing programmes.
Moving annotations between the system and archive cannot be solved without a considerable degree of special development and tailor-made systems.
If HSØ's vision is to be solved with different suppliers, there will be a need for double storage of media objets and handling media objects in different stores. This will also require the use of different viewing programmes ('viewers'). In total, double storage and the use of different viewers will involve an increased risk of mix-ups of both picture versions and patient/examination, which, in turn can cause errors in diagnostics and treatment. Furthermore, HSØ's read access requirements for clinicians could not be met in a system with different suppliers of the specialist system and the multimedia archive.
After a market dialogue, HSØ has come to the conclusion that the market cannot currently deliver a system with different suppliers of a specialist system for digital pathology and a multimedia archive. Neither are there mature standards that show that this can be put in place in accordance with the project's implementation plan.
The contracting authority believes that there is a legal basis to enter into a contract without contest in accordance with the public procurement regulations §13-4, letter b) no. 2.


Winner: Sectra Norge AS
Award value: 25700000