The Health Service Executive (HSE) said last night it was monitoring very closely developments within a UK software company with which it signed a €56 million contract last year.
The company, iSoft, has seen its share price plummet by 90 per cent this year and earlier this month it suspended its chief operating officer after discovering irregularities in its 2004 and 2005 accounts.
iSoft has to date been paid €10 million by the HSE to provide an electronic patient records system for hospitals and a senior information technology source claimed yesterday that this initial investment could turn out be worthless if the company goes under.
However, the HSE insisted that there are significant safeguards built into its contract with iSoft "to protect the HSE's interests covering a range of eventualities".
The system was originally installed in the former Southern Health Board area and at Tallaght hospital, Dublin. A new version of the system has, as part of the new contract, been installed in the HSE Southern area and this new version is currently also being installed in the HSE West Area and HSE North and Mid-Leinster regions. The HSE said iSoft has been integrated with a range of other systems.
"Although, to date, there has been no operational impact on the service provided by iSoft, the HSE is monitoring very closely the developments within the company. In relation to the contract with iSoft, there are significant safeguards built in to protect the HSE's interests covering a range of eventualities," it said in a statement.
"The HSE has spent €10 million over two years on this contract. Further payments are dependent on the delivery of agreed targets as set out in the contract," it added.
iSoft is also contracted to upgrade the NHS's computer system in the UK. This £6.2 billion programme is already more than two years behind schedule. In the Dáil last November Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny demanded to know why the HSE had signed the contract with iSoft on a Saturday. The HSE subsequently explained that a draft contract was agreed with iSoft in November 2003 and when it (the HSE) came into being, it commissioned an external evaluation to ensure it would provide value for money. The HSE, it said, pressurised iSoft to maintain the prices previously agreed and in return iSoft agreed it would do so if the contract could be completed by April 30th, 2005, which happened to be a Saturday.
A spokesman for iSoft in Manchester said there was no reason why the company wouldn't be able to continue implementing the contract it had with the HSE. "I'm quite confident they should not be concerned about iSoft going belly up," Alex Gray said.
Green Party health spokesman John Gormley last night called on Minister for Health Mary Harney to make an immediate statement.
"This Government's experiences to date with computer systems have not been happy ones. Between electronic voting, PPARS and Lorenzo, this latest iSoft system, they have displayed a complete ignorance about modern technology matched only by their profligacy with taxpayers' money," he said.