The state is switching vendors after spending thousands of dollars on a flawed electronic system for food safety inspections. The Department of Health paid Paragon Bermuda $169,939 for the system that was supposed to cover billing, inspections, and online public access. After three years of problems, however, inspectors have gone back to manually filling out paperwork as the state starts the process to solicit bids from other vendors.

“One of the big problems was when the inspectors used the system in the field, it freezes up, it was very slow, and that was very frustrating for our staff,” explained Peter Oshiro, DOH environmental health program manager.

The state upgraded to an electronic system for restaurant inspections in September 2012, but the database is only available for internal use. Oshiro said it’s unclear whether all that information can be transferred into a new system or if the state will have to start over with the next vendor that could be in place by the summer.
“We figure cut our losses now, get out of this bad system, and hopefully we’ve refined our procurement process to the point where we’ll get another better vendor the next time,” said Oshiro.