Public procurement notice: Modification Of A Contract/Concession During Its Term
Published: 2019-09-02
Buyer: Health Service Executive
Country: IE
Contract type: Supplies
CPV classification: 48000000

Technical requirements: The HSE intends to vary an existing contract in accordance with the provisions of Article 72(1)(b) of the 2014 directive for the provision of the National Medical Imaging System (NIMIS).
The HSE has identified a need to carry out an extensive technology refresh and software upgrades of the National Integrated Medical Imaging System (‘NIMIS’) platform.
A recent NIMIS ICT audit identified important issues with the current NIMIS solution which require remediation.
The required remediation involves both a backend hardware refresh and software upgrades that resolve the audit findings significantly improving the cyber security posture, resilience and protections against current and emerging cyber security threats to the NIMIS platform. This will involve a centralisation of backend hardware within the HSE hosted data centres and the virtualisation of the associated NIMIS footprint. The remediation will also require upgrades of the NIMIS application suite.
In light of the NIMIS ICT audit findings the HSE has determined that the remediation works cannot be postponed without introducing significant risk to the continued delivery of essential patient care. The end date of this contract modification is 22.2.2026.
Need for additional works, services or supplies by the original contractor/concessionaire (Art. 43(1)(b) of Directive 2014/23/EU, Art. 72(1)(b) of Directive 2014/24/EU, Art. 89 (1)(b) of Directive 2014/25/EU).
Description of the economic or technical reasons and the inconvenience or duplication of cost preventing a change of contractor:
NIMIS supports the diagnostic imaging service requirements for most patients in the publically funded health system in Ireland. A full system refresh is necessary to improve the cyber security posture, robustness and resilience of this essential clinical system. Following an extensive due diligence process the HSE has concluded that there would be major technical and economic challenges in delivering the necessary remediation by implementing a replacement system from another contractor.
The main economic or technical reasons which will lead to significant inconvenience or duplication of cost are:
— the implementation resources required to complete a full design, build, and test of the replacement platform,
— the training of all radiology staff, doctors, nurses, and other health professionals who use NIMIS,
The HSE has determined that the NIMIS ICT audit remediation works cannot be delayed without introducing significant risk to the continued delivery of essential patient care. Implementing a replacement system from another contractor to remediate the audit findings would take much longer, be substantially more complex and require significant additional HSE resources to deliver compared to implementing NIMIS 2.0. The HSE has concluded that implementing NIMIS 2.0 is the only means of delivering the necessary audit remediation in the required timeframe. This is to ensure that essential clinical services delivered to patients are best protected from current and emerging cyber security threats.
All NIMIS imaging records would have to be migrated from the current NIMIS solution to a replacement system implemented by another contractor. There would be significant additional effort required from HSE resources to undertake the validation activities required to complete such a migration. The main migrations that would have to be completed are (figures are approximate):
The HSE possesses a national enterprise software licence for the NIMIS RIS and PACS applications to cover usage by all HSE funded sites and any other entity contracted to undertake services on behalf of the HSE. The HSE also possesses licences for third party NIMIS applications provided by the current contractor to cover activity across the NIMIS sites. Software licence charges for a replacement system would result in substantial duplicate costs to the HS.
Substantial duplication of implementation work would be required by HSE personnel on a replacement system. This would directly remove these clinical and care support staff away from the delivery of patient care and diagnostic imaging services. This would result in a reduction in patient care capacity.


Winner: Change Healthcare Ireland Solutions Ltd