I. Strategy Overview

The Health Information Directorate; Ministry of Health (MoH) in Kingdom of Bahrain has reviewed the current technical and application architectures with plans to implement an advanced strategic solution that will handle the provision of world-class Services and support to its customer and vendor base.

In the year 2001, a Business Consulting Company (Arthur Anderson) was contracted to assist in the building of the Information and Communication Technology Strategy (ICT) which consist of number of requirements such as interrelated systems, functional requirements, business requirements, administrative requirements, as well as technical infrastructure requirements.

The Ministry of Health has initiated the Health Services technology Development Program (HealthIT) to execute the implementation of the ICT strategy. According to the Cabinet of the Government of Bahrain, Directives the BOOT (Build-Own-Operate-Transfer) Model is the only Outsourcing Model to be considered. The HealthIT Program plays a major role in enabling the business and management of healthcare initiatives to be achieved. The foundation of re-engineering and modernization is the implementation of an evidence-based management that requires a total restructuring and redevelopment of its information and automation strategies and systems.

II. HealthIT Program Definition

The HealthIT Program will consist of several projects namely Health Core Selection Project, Several Health Core Implementation Projects, Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) Project, etc.

The objective of the Health Core Selection Project is to select a long-term partner who has the capability of outsourcing the entire IT solution. The outsourcing scope will be (BOOT) Build, Own, Operate with an option to Transfer after a set period of time which will be stipulated in the Tender.


The Health Core selection process will consists of two stages as indicated below:

- Prequalification: The first stage will be issuing this prequalification document. The Pre-qualification Document is prepared in order to invite prospective vendors to prove their capability to act as the Prime Contractor, Outsourcer, system integrator and IT solutions provider.

- Tendering: The second stage will be a tender for selection. The Request for Proposal (RFP) will be prepared and issued only to the pre-qualified vendors. The vendors who are not participating in the prequalification process will not be invited for Tendering Stage. MoH will be evaluated the vendors' responses to RFP to select the best partner for the Health Core Implementation Project.

A. Health Core Selection Project:

The scope includes selecting a BOOT Outsourcing Partner who will be responsible for providing technology, human resources, design, develop, Implement, Operations, Maintenance, Financing and commercial risks associated with the project. The Contractor owns and operates the project and the assets are transferred back to the government at the end of a period of 10 years.
The Contractor will implement the Health Core Applications and the Infrastructure in MoH Hospitals, Health Centers, Directorates and other Healthcare facilities in Bahrain. The Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Project is not included in the scope, but the integration with the ERP, the MOH current systems and other Government Organizations are included. Given below are the Implementation Projects:

1. Health Core Applications

• Patient Management
• Electronic Patient Record
• ICD Grouper
• Patient Appointment System
• Orders and Results Communication
• Pharmacy System
• Radiology Management
• Laboratory Management
• Primary Healthcare
• Accident & Emergency
• Theatre
• Nutrition
• Critical Care


2. Common Services Projects

• Integration Engine
• Security Management
• Online Real-time Query
• Rules management
• Network Infrastructure and Server Planning


3. National Applications

• Public Health & Community Support

4. Health Support Applications

• Catering
• Hospital Supply Chain Management

5. Training and Change Management

This includes business process re-engineering and continuous training to get the best utilization of MoH resources to provide the best healthcare services.


B. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Project

The ERP Project of the HealthIT program is a business management system that will select a solution to implement fully integrated system for Financial & Inventory Control application, and Human Resource, that will fulfill Ministry of Health (MoH) requirements.

Approach

With reference to the cabinet directives in the minutes no. 1753 on 4th May 2003, with respect to selecting the best information system to achieve the Ministry of Health objective, avoiding the information technology duplication in the government organizations has taken into account very seriously when preparing the Terms of Reference for Health Services Technology Development Program (HealthIT) dated September 2004. Therefore, Ministry of Health will optimize the usage of the existing information technology in the other Government Organizations such as Government Data Network, Financial Management Information System (FMIS), and Human Resource Information System (HoRISon). Moreover, the Government Organizations will be committed to ensure that, their systems are meeting the MoH Requirements as follows:

1. MoF will be responsible for meeting the MoH Financial requirements.
2. CSB will be responsible for meeting the MoH Human Resources requirements.
3. CIO will be responsible for ensuring that the wide area network infrastructure is meeting MoH requirements.
4. The application will adhere to National Data Services (NDS) guidelines in sharing data taking in consideration the Patient medical record privacy and confidentiality.

Also, to achieve the integrity of the governmental system, integration between those systems and MoH system will be taken into account.

• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
• Vendor Workshop on 10/07/2007 Presentation
• HealthIT Vendor Clarification 1
• HealthIT Vendor Clarification 2
• HealthIT Vendor Clarification 3
• HealthIT Vendor Clarification 4

Contact No.:
Fax Number: 00973-17-246245
E-mail: Healthit@health.gov.bh