The Kent Institute of Medicine and Surgery needed to upgrade its laboratory software. In doing so, it skipped at least 15 officially released versions of its laboratory information management system and is now running the most up to date suite of Clinisys products, anywhere. Adam Chapman and Frank Lockwood explain.
The Kent Institute of Medicine and Surgery – known as KIMS – is a purpose-built private hospital, with 99 beds, five operating theatres and a comprehensive diagnostic and imaging suite.
It came to Clinisys when it opened ten years ago and has been using the WinPath laboratory information management system ever since. In fact, says Frank Lockwood, domain lead, solution management: “KIMS was one of our first WinPath Enterprise installs, and our last WinPath 7.1x customer.”
The customer
- The Kent Institute of Medicine and Surgery operates KIMS Hospital in Maidstone and medical centres in Sevenoaks, Orpington, and Royal Tunbridge Wells.
- KIMS operates 72 inpatient and day-case beds plus higher-dependency services. It runs five theatres, two endoscopy suites, and an interventional lab.
- Its pathology labs provide blood sciences and microbiology testing to support its surgical services.
- Other tests are sent to the ‘South 8’ pathology network, another Clinisys customer, that provides services to the NHS and private providers in the area.
An upgrade to the latest solution and latest version
Clearly an upgrade was in order, but as Clinisys started to prepare for one last autumn, the team realised KIMS would be a good candidate for the very latest version of Clinisys WinPath.
Frank continues: “Clinisys WinPath 2023.2 was released in December 2024, just as this client was on the edge of their testing window. So, we put it in within a day of release and got it on the PCs for testing.”
Taking such a significant jump meant some big changes for KIMS, whose version of LIMS didn’t have the modern WinPath patient layer. “Their solution was more like a forerunner of WinPath Enterprise, the Clinisys v5 system, than a modern solution,” says Frank. “So, we had to work out how to create the patient layer data set from the data in the system.”
The team was able to use an eight-year-old utility that had only been used twice before to build the data required, once it had been updated to work with the new version of Clinisys WinPath.
The result is a much richer information screen for pathologists at KIMS, who carry out blood sciences and microbiology work to support the hospital’s surgical services.
“We got more information from the downstream systems into Clinisys WinPath,” says Frank. “The patient layer makes it easier for users to work out what patient data to associate with a request.
“The pathologists at KIMS were able to change their whole way of working in WinPath, and they got it in no time. We’ve had some feedback from people on site about how this has improved the speed of testing and how it is providing much more information to work with.”
Following the upgrade, KIMS is running:
- Clinisys WinPath 2023.2 – the latest version of Clinisys’ flagship LIMS
- Clinisys Integration Manager 7.4
- SampleNet2023.1 – Clinisys’ latest data manager
- PathManager 3.4 – Clinisys’ reporting and analytics solution
The latest products across the board
KIMS didn’t just upgrade to the latest version of Clinisys WinPath. It also adopted the most up to date versions of a whole suite of Clinisys products.
The hospital has adopted the latest version of Clinisys SampleNet, which acts as a single repository for all the drivers that connect the analysers to the LIMS. Previously, KIMS was on v11; again, one of the last to still be using the technology.
The hospital also upgraded Clinisys Integration Manager, which is bundled with Clinisys WinPath to manage integrations with downstream systems, and adopted the latest version of PathManager, which provides management reporting capabilities.
Despite this, testing went smoothly. “It is a smaller lab, and the workflow is relatively straightforward, but the client was really committed to getting over all the hurdles,” says Frank.
“The client was really on board with getting everything over the line for the date set for go-live, which was 26 March.” On the day, a small team from Clinisys was on site to do the upgrade, deploy the WinPath patient layer, and shut down the existing production system.
The labs at KIMS were down for less than three hours. “There was no system we didn’t have to upgrade, but we were able to work fast because we had done so much work in preparation for the go-live,” Frank says. “In the end, it was quite a relaxed day.”
Calling out great work: the go-live team
On site on the day:
- Frank Lockwood – Domain Lead, Solution Management
- Eamonn O’Dwyer – Senior Product Manager, Clinisys WinPath
- Samer Geris – Product Specialist, Microbiology
Providing remote support:
- Nelson Sousa – Integration Engineer
- Roger Parkes – Blood Science Domain Lead
- Adam Chapman – Programme Director
A test bed for the upgrade process
KIMS is now showing the way for other Clinisys customers looking to move to the latest available versions of the company’s technology.
“KIMS has gone from WinPath 7.13 to Clinisys WinPath 2023.2. In doing that they have skipped something like fifteen or sixteen officially released versions,” says Adam Chapman, Programme Director, who provided remote support for the go-live on the day.
“It’s a huge leap, particularly when they adopted new versions of so many other products at the same time. We were able to deliver so much so quickly because this was a smaller site, but this was still a good test bed – and another very successful go-live.”
