Sydney, Apr 30, 2008 (ABN Newswire) - IBA Health Group Limited (ASX: IBA)(PINK: IBATF) - Australia's largest listed health information technology company today announced that the largest provider of independent healthcare services in the UK, General Healthcare Group (GHG) has appointed iSOFT as a strategic health information technology partner. Further, GHG will license and implement iSOFT's patient management systems at its 47 BMI Healthcare private acute care hospitals and its Netcare centres in a deal worth $10.6 million (£5 million) over six years.

Additional services will be provided over the life of the agreement for development, implementation and deployment services. The agreement also provides the framework for licensing and implementation of additional iSOFT products. The agreement provides a strategic framework for GHG and iSOFT to work closely together as iSOFT makes available its "next generation" of products.

In addition, GHG has appointed iSOFT as its preferred supplier for clinical IT systems, to include order communications and results reporting as well as other systems to support its highly successful and growing business. iSOFT will be working closely with GHG as a partner to ensure fast-track deployment of these critical business solutions.

As the largest provider of independent healthcare services in the UK, GHG is upgrading to iSOFT's iPM Patient Administration System as part of its overhaul of IT systems and infrastructure. The GHG group will implement iPM across its national network of BMI Healthcare hospitals as well as its Netcare centres, integrating patient management, billing and back-office functionality within a single suite of software.

iPM will streamline the current patient administration processes, reduce the dependency on paper records and include core theatre and billing data into a single electronic record. This repository of information will form the basis of a patient's "Electronic Health Record" for the GHG network of facilities.

Paul Richards, Managing Director of iSOFT UK and Ireland, said, "This follows a number of strategic meetings with GHG to ensure that our organisation was in alignment with GHG to support their industry leading strategy. This agreement reinforces our position as one of the top suppliers of state of the art health IT systems to the private healthcare sector and puts iSOFT in a prime position to capitalise on new opportunities in this sector."

GHG includes BMI Healthcare, the largest independent provider of acute surgical services in the UK.

Adrian Fawcett, CEO, GHG said, "We at General Healthcare Group are fully committed to delivering best quality, best practice and best outcomes in everything that we do. The investment in new patient management systems demonstrates our commitment to continuous innovation and excellence as the UK leader in independent healthcare."

Graham Knight, CIO, GHG said, "The implementation of iSOFT is a key component in our strategy of improving the patient journey and giving nurses, doctors and consultants the most flexibility in how they access and share information."