Laboratory information management firm CliniSys has won a major contract to deploy a single system across Northern Ireland as part of a modernisation programme to create a world-class pathology service for the country.
The company will replace the seven IT systems used by Northern Ireland's hospital trusts' pathology disciplines and the Northern Ireland Blood Transfusion service.
It will also replace the legacy system used by the country's genetics service with GLIMS Genomics, which has been designed to meet the needs of genomics laboratories and successfully deployed across mainland Europe.
Northern Ireland's health minister Robin Swann said: "Pathology is a service that operates largely behind the scenes but which is critical to our health service and contributes to the vast majority of patient diagnoses from GPs and hospitals.
"The past 18 months have been particularly challenging, with the pandemic placing unprecedented demands on our testing service and reinforcing the need for investment and transformation of our Health and Social Care system, to meet the needs of our citizens in coming years.
"I believe that a world class digital healthcare service is at the heart of our future needs, and the launch of LIMS is a shining example of transformation being delivered."
CliniSys chief executive Richard Craven added: "This is a big and exciting project. It is a national deployment for WinPath Enterprise and the first UK deployment of GLIMS Genomics.
"This is a ten-year contract, so we are in this for the long-term."