The following appeared a little while ago.
DH looks to secure Choose and Book IP
22 August 2012 Rebecca Todd
The Department of Health is re-procuring Choose and Book and wants to remove the use of Cerner Millennium so it owns the intellectual property for the system’s functionality.
The current e-booking service is built on an implementation of Cerner’s Millennium product, using the person and scheduling modules.
A Department of Health market engagement exercise document, seen by eHealth Insider, says it is looking to remove dependencies on commercial-off-the-shelf products - specifically Cerner Millennium - for the provision of business functionality and data access.
“We are interested in understanding proposals for how the existing software architecture could be modified to reduce licence/operating/change costs – for example by removal of dependencies on commercial-off-the-shelf products - for the provision of business functionality and data access and adoption of open-source products,” it says.
“The result would be that the NHS will own all the [intellectual property rights] for all Choose and Book business functionality."
The DH document says the new service should also deliver of a range of functional enhancements.
Enhanced support for commissioners and referrers could include enhanced reporting capability such as a “forward order book” or dashboards, a referral assessment service, improved training and education and enhanced advice and guidance.
Potential provider changes include referral letters going straight into provider electronic patient record systems, linked referrals and an appointment scheduler that supports 'any qualified provider'.
Enhanced support for the patient would include integration with the patient portal, patient self-referral and better patient communications such as text and email.
More here:
Not surprisingly this report made me think “What about the NEHRS?”.
As we know there are all sorts of bits from Oracle and Orion with some glue from Accenture (and others) involved in the NEHRS.
I wonder who owns what, what is licensed and what happens if someone else needs to re-develop / expand what we already have.
Enquiring minds would love to know just what the various contracts say and what it might mean for the future?
Anyone know?
David.