Overview
Overview
The Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, headed by Professor David Argyle, has an international reputation for its research, teaching and clinical services. The School is consistently highly ranked by The Times Higher and the Guardian newspaper. The School is accredited by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS), the European Association of Establishments for Veterinary Education (EAEVE) and the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and participates in the Veterinary Medical Colleges Admissions Service (VMCAS).
The Small Animal Hospital's multi-million pound business (and that of the pathology, labs, equine and other units using Tristan) are at very high risk of failure in the short term, with resulting significant financial loss and reputational damage to the Royal Dick.
Background
The Practice Management System (PMS) is the software supporting the commercial clinical activities at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies. It is Integral to the business as it holds client records, patient details, laboratory results, case records, referring practice details and financial records. it is also essential for research purposes and undergraduate and postgraduate teaching.
The current PMS is Tristan. The system providers have withdrawn from the veterinary sector. The system is currently unsupported and has had no developmental work for approximately 3 years. The software is hosted on University of Edinburgh Servers. The software is viewed on either supported desktops or “kiosks”. The kiosks are PCs which allow Tristan program access only.
The Tristan platform contains 8 MSSQL Server Databases, the largest of which is the Small Animals database, holding around 60,000 animal records. Approximately 20,000 apppointments per annum take place, of which approximately 70% are for referred cases; approximately 3000 clients are added to the database each year.
Dimensions
Business Turnover:
Collectively, the commercial activities generate an annual turnover in excess of £7.5 million.
Users:
Approximately 100 clinicians, 100 support staff and 200 undergraduate users require regular access to the system. In addition occasional access is required for visitors, researchers and other graduates.
Transactions:
Over 25,000 appointments take place per annum with approximately 20,000 financial transactions and 4000 insurance claims (caseload expanding in equine and small animal services).
Anticipated Growth:
Clinical has grown 43% over previous five years. It is essential that future capacity planning allows for growth at this level over the coming five years.
Scope
The project will procure a replacement for the current Tristan system.
The project team recognise that there are limited providers who will be able to provide a replacement system for all of the following areas:
Hospital for Small Animals
Equine Veterinary Services
Production Animal Services
Easter Bush Pathology
Requirements will be prioritised according to impact and need, to ensure that the best overall solution is implemented (recognising that this may not immediately satisfy all local needs). The intention is to replace 100% of the existing system, but this may represent 75%-85% of desired replacement requirements.
The procurement will be for the UoE only. The project will not undertake a joint procurement with other institutions.
The procurement will be an 'open process', i.e. one stage, straight to Invitation to Tender. No Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) will be undertaken. This was agreed with the UoE Procurement Office following a market analysis exercise. It is anticipated that approx 5 suppliers will bid for the contract, but a Prior Information Notice (PIN) has been published to help gauge potential interest. This information is being used to help define requirements and appropriate mandatories.
The procurement phase will award the contract to the successful supplier.
The procurement phase must define the high level implementation plan, including any plans for phased implementation. This must be agreed with the successful supplier.
Governance arrangements for the procurement and subsequent implementation phase(s), including:
Structure of the Project Board, User Group and Core Project Team.
Governance assessments throughout the key stages of the procurement project (and subsequent implementation phase). These will serve the purpose of gateway reviews before the project moves to the next key stage (e.g. before ITT published, contract signed etc).
A separate project will be initiated for the implementation of the selected solution.
Objectives
The objective of the project is to procure a new Practice Management System (PMS) for the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies to replace the Tristan system. The procurement will define the business requirements and evaluation questions which will be listed in the Invitation to Tender document (ITT). The business requirements will be categorised under nine functional areas:
General Clinical
Clinical Record
Pharmacy & Stock Control
Accounts & Finance
Research
Management Information
Easter Bush Pathology
Dairy Herd Health and Productivity Services
Diagnostic Imaging
The ITT will also define the following requirements:
System accessibility and usability
Implementation and training
Product development
Support and maintenance
Technology
Deliverables
The project will procure a new Practice Management System (PMS). The Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, IS Applications Division and Procurement will work together to specify the business and functional requirements, which will form part of the Invitation to Tender.
The management deliverables of the project are:
Establishing the Project Governance arrangements
Approved procurement strategy
Published Invitation to Tender document (ITT)
Contract Notice issued
Evaluation of ITT supplier responses and supplier demos
Contract Award to successful supplier
Ongoing support and maintenance arrangements
Implementation plan agreed with successful supplier
Other deliverables include:
Engaged stakeholder community
Increased awareness of project across the University
Benefits
The procurement project will deliver some intangible benefits, including:
Engagement with key stakeholder groups throughout the University.
Relationship building between IS Apps and MVM.
Efficient procurement process to ensure the University selects the right product
The benefits listed below will be delivered following the new system implementation.
Moving to a new Practice Management System will:
Improve and streamline business process and increased automation of high-throughput workflows, resulting in significant demonstrable savings in effort.
Provide an intuitive system matching staff workflows and provide automatic prompts to support tasks such as laboratory results, case invoicing and insurance claims processes.
Provide timely and accurate management information for all levels of school staff to monitor and improve services.
User focused, coherent search - effectively tackling the challenges of mining the information through a single search interface, addressing the needs of a wide range of users and search preferences.
Allow optimal use of patient and laboratory data for research purposes and provide clear means of identifying archived laboratory samples with simple cross-reference to patient database (e.g. barcodes).
Ensure clear, efficient and accurate financial information and invoicing capability.
Allow for efficient user-friendly automated price updates for major suppliers.
Maximise teaching opportunities and provide a learning environment for veterinary undergraduate students that can be supervised and controlled by appropriate staff.
Success Criteria
The success criteria for the procurement project is:
Engaged stakeholder groups that have contributed to the production of the ITT and are committed to assisting with the delivery of the new product.
ITT approved by Project User Group and Project Board
New PMS procured after undertaking a thorough evaluation period.
New PMS procured in line with the budget and business requirements approved by the Project Board.
Contract awarded to successful supplier.