20 Jun

Medtech to decouple NES and NZePS roll-out

By TMG Webmaster TMG National News
Market leading general practice management system vendor Medtech Global plans to decouple the roll out of the National Enrolment Service (NES) and the New Zealand Electronic Prescription Service (NZePS) in a move that may solve the impasse over the systems' implementation by general practices.

Medtech had been planning to roll out both services to its users at the same time, and to charge an activation charge for both services of $675 and a fee of $100 a month for ongoing maintenance and support.

Several primary health organisations (PHOs) had baulked at the charge and have since been in discussions with Medtech and the Ministry of Health on how to overcome it.

Both Medtech and the Ministry were holding to their guns recently. Medtech argued that the time needed to activate practices – it has about 85 per cent of the share of the market, meaning over 800 practices – and the expected service levels were high and it could not absorb the costs.

The Ministry argued that it had paid for the cost of the development of the NES but it did not fund ongoing support costs for commercial vendors delivering commercial services to their customer base.

All parties have been in discussions over the last few months and a resolution may be in sight. Medtech Global executive director Ross Tanner told Pulse+IT that the Ministry had advised Medtech that it was no longer a requirement for Medtech to offer the NES and NZePS services as a bundled package.

“Accordingly, Medtech is planning to decouple the roll-out of the two services,” Mr Tanner said.

“We are currently in discussion with PHO representatives about the costs of activation and ongoing support for the services. A joint announcement about both costs and timing will be made when those discussions have concluded and agreement is reached.

“A number of practices are already using NZ-ePS and more activation requests are currently being received via the Ministry of Health.”

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