Public procurement notice: Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notice
Published: 2023-02-28
Buyer: Health Service Executive
Country: IE
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Negotiated without a prior call for competition
CPV classification: 48180000 | 72000000
Estimated value: 663000 EUR
Award criteria: Lowest price

Technical requirements: Υπηρεσίες τεχνολογίας των πληροφοριών: παροχή συμβουλών, ανάπτυξη λογισμικού, Διαδίκτυο και υποστήριξη
The HSE procured a Kidney Disease Clinical Patient Management System (KDCPMS) pursuant to a competitive tender procedure advertised in OJEU and concluded in 2010. The current KDCPMS solution eMed from Mediqal Health Informatics operates in 16 Acute Hospital Sites and 9 Satellite Units spread across Ireland and has over 1200 users at present. The application has multiple interfaces operating to provide the care teams with real time clinical data such as the latest laboratory results and individual patient haemodialysis treatments. KDCPMS also provides a sophisticated suite of customizable reports that provide invaluable data for analysis by the care teams.
HSE now wishes to procure support services only to eMed renal to include (a) Application support (b) Hardware support (c) Option to refresh hardware (d) Application upgrade pathways. It is necessary to extend the current contract and extend its scope to allow for continuity of safe delivery of this critical health service and VFM.
The HSE procured a Kidney Disease Clinical Patient Management System (KDCPMS) pursuant to a competitive tender procedure advertised in OJEU and concluded in 2010. The current KDCPMS solution eMed renal from Mediqal Health Informatics (MHI) operates in 16 Acute Hospital Sites and 9 Satellite Units spread across Ireland. The eMed application has over 1200 users at present. The application has multiple interfaces operating to provide the care teams with real time clinical data such as the latest laboratory results and individual patient haemodialysis treatments. KDCPMS also provides a sophisticated suite of customizable reports that provide invaluable data for analysis by the care teams.
HSE now wishes to procure support services only to eMed renal to include (a) Application support (b) Hardware support (c) Option to refresh hardware (d) Application upgrade pathways.
Changing supplier/system would lead to incompatibility and disproportionate technical difficulties in operation and maintenance. It is necessary to extend the current contract and extend its scope to allow for continuity of safe delivery of public health services, and to provide a value for money return on the significant capital investment to date.
Mediqal Health Informatics was acquired by IBCOS Computers Limited, part of the Perseus operating group of Constellation Hardware, in 2017 however the original contract and the costs have remained fixed or predetermined.
Article 32.3(b) of the Directive provides for direct negotiation with an incumbent supplier to replace or extend supplies where changing supplier would lead to incompatibility or disproportionate technical difficulties in operation and maintenance. It is necessary to extend the current contract and extend its scope to allow for continuity of safe delivery of public health services, and to provide a value for money return on the significant capital investment to date across 26 hospital and satellite sites. There is a clinical risk around the full continuity of access to and performance of the Kidney Disease Clinical Patient Information System. Implementing a new KDCPMS solution poses a significant clinical risk to patients as staff may struggle to use the solution in the early phases. Vital patient data may not be accessible or input ono the new solution in a timely manner. The current eMed application operates in conjunction with other Third-party software. Quality assurance of these system interfaces is a lengthy process requiring months of User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and meetings per site.
In the current environment of extreme stress on the public health system, the time and effort to procure, test and deploy alternate solutions could interrupt safe supply of this critical front line service to patients. As the HSE has effectively bought an enterprise license to use this software there would also be a very substantial duplication of cost involved.
HSE believes that due to intellectual property (IP) rights in the contract, there is no third party with the legal entitlement and ability / technical capability to provide the support services required for this critical Kidney Disease Clinical Patient Information System for the public health service and wishes to extend this contract by a period of 3 years. Additional costs that arise were envisaged in the original contract and the costs have remained fixed or predetermined. Whilst additional monies will now become due, these relate to both the rates previously agreed and the scope as original envisaged for the rollout covering both implementation, upgrading and support and maintenance.
Article 32.3(b) of the Directive provides for direct negotiation with an incumbent supplier to replace or extend supplies where changing supplier would lead to incompatibility or disproportionate technical difficulties in operation and maintenance. It is necessary to extend the current contract and extend its scope to allow for continuity of safe delivery of public health services, and to provide a value for money return on the significant capital investment to date across 26 hospital and satellite sites. There is a clinical risk around the full continuity of access to and performance of the Kidney Disease Clinical Patient Management System. Implementing a new KDCPMS solution poses a significant clinical risk to patients as staff may struggle to use the solution in the early phases. Vital patient data may not be accessible or input ono the new solution in a timely manner. The current eMed application operates in conjunction with other Third-party software. Quality assurance of these system interfaces is a lengthy process requiring months of User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and meetings per site.
In the current environment of extreme stress on the public health system, the time and effort to procure, test and deploy alternate solutions could interrupt safe supply of this critical front line service to patients. As the HSE has effectively bought an enterprise license to use this software there would also be a very substantial duplication of cost involved. Circa 1200 current system users across 25 sites would require extensive training on any new system.
HSE believes that due to intellectual property (IP) rights in the contract, there is no third party with the legal entitlement and ability / technical capability to provide the support services required for this critical Kidney Disease Clinical Patient Information System for the public health service and wishes to extend this contract by a period of 3 years. Additional costs that arise were envisaged in the original contract and the costs have remained fixed or predetermined. Whilst additional monies will now become due, these relate to both the rates previously agreed and the scope as original envisaged for the rollout covering both implementation, upgrading and support and maintenance.


Winner: Mediqal Health Informatics
Award value: 663000