Whither NHU-PAC's Next Generation?

Back in 2007, there were committee meetings and surveys and a "Shaping the Next NHU-PAC" session at the NHLA/NHEMA spring conference, with plans to view vendor demonstrations later that year and select a new system early in 2008. And here we are in 2010 with the same old system. What happened? Our SirsiDynix contract for the current system didn't expire as soon as we had been led to believe. Then came a budget crunch that led us to extend the contract even further in the absence of funds to buy something new. We'll be revisiting this issue before the expiration of our current contract but right now there is no activity toward moving to a new system. However, the work done in 2007 gave us lots of ideas about how the NHU-PAC could work better (survey results are available online) and we continue to talk to SirsiDynix about possible improvements. One more point that has caused some confusion: the statewide open-source automation project is entirely separate from plans for a new NHU-PAC.