National Pathology Exchange (NPEx) Service

Concepts

• national pathology exchange
• belfast
• information technology
• national digital hub
• pathology test requests
• npex services
• npex
• manual workflows
• core lims project
• manual work

Location

Northern Ireland:

Description

The National Pathology Exchange (NPEx) was developed in 2009 by X-Lab Systems as a product they call Labnostics. It is a national digital hub allowing pathology test requests and results to be sent between UK laboratories irrespective of the type of LIMS that each lab is using. The Core LIMS project has secured via its approved Full Business Case (FBC) funding for NPEx services that will provide an electronic solution to eliminate manual workflows associated with referring tests to other laboratories outside of the HSC.

Total Quantity or Scope

During 2022 Trusts within HSC sent out ~45,000 tests to other labs across the UK to utilise specialist testing that is not catered for or has limited capacity within Northern Ireland. This is currently a labour-intensive manual process and demand for the service is expected to increase as more specialist technologies and tests are made available. The consequences of not utilising NPEx are increased manual work for clinical staff supporting this process, increased timeframe, failure of the project to achieve key benefits that provided justification for the FBC, and continued risk to patient safety due to failure to remove the manual processes associated with this work.

Award Detail

CPV Codes

• 72000000 - IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support

Legal Justification

The National Pathology Exchange (NPEx) was developed in 2009 by X-Lab Systems as a product they call Labnostics. It is a national digital hub allowing pathology test requests and results to be sent between UK laboratories irrespective of the type of LIMS that each lab is using. The Core LIMS project has secured via its approved Full Business Case (FBC) funding for NPEx services that will provide an electronic solution to eliminate manual workflows associated with referring tests to other laboratories outside of the HSC. During 2022 Trusts within HSC sent out ~45,000 tests to other labs across the UK to utilise specialist testing that is not catered for or has limited capacity within Northern Ireland. This is currently a labour-intensive manual process and demand for the service is expected to increase as more specialist technologies and tests are made available. The consequences of not utilising NPEx are increased manual work for clinical staff supporting this process, increased timeframe, failure of the project to achieve key benefits that provided justification for the FBC, and continued risk to patient safety due to failure to remove the manual processes associated with this work. X-Lab Ltd is the single supplier at of this solution and its support. Only the supplier of the solution, has the technical expertise to carry out this work and provide connectivity to the other Labs that use the NPEx

Other Information

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