Current Filter: Document>>>>>>

   

Milton Keynes Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has digitised its entire patient records library totalling 287,000 files - each containing an average of 200 images. It deployed CCube Solutions' EDRM software to improve the quality and accessibility of outpatient notes for clinicians. It also releases space, saves money and puts in place technology to support the hospital in the future, which is especially important as the NHS is challenged by the health secretary to become paperless.

Since the project went live, the Trust has reduced the number of medical records staff by over a third. In addition, it has made other administrative processes far more efficient and repurposed the use of parts of its library building.

SETTING THE SCENE
Milton Keynes Hospital was built about 25 years ago and had become short of space: it is unable to accommodate the number of paper patient files, especially given that some records have to be kept 25 years after a person's death. Trudi Mynard, Milton Keynes Hospital's head of patients' services says, "There is no more room at the inn. It was affecting processes as there wasn't space available on the shelves to store the notes."

In addition, a paper-based records system was hindering how staff work: there is one set of the notes so only one person at any one time could access them. While the processes for managing paper has been made as efficient and lean as possible, there would be several thousand notes out in the Trust every day rather than in the library which required the employment of 'runners' to collect. If notes were not tracked carefully, records staff would have to search for them extensively prior to clinics starting.

Milton Keynes Hospital wanted to make the notes available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and ensure multiple clinicians would be able to access them. This is because care is often provided by multidisciplinary teams, or patients may have appointments close to each other - and getting the notes from one place to another in time is difficult.

Furthermore, by moving to electronic notes, the quality of the record can be improved. Paper records will degrade, get damaged, fade, carbon copies become difficult to read and the contents can fall out of a file. By scanning, a crisp, clear document is created which will last in perpetuity.

Trudi Mynard says, "The digital records management project will help the Trust meet its key organisational objectives to increase patient safety, improve the patient experience and enhance clinical effectiveness."

THE SOLUTION
CCube Solutions was chosen as Milton Keynes Hospital's EDRM software supplier given its response to a thorough tender process, feedback from clinicians after they attended a demonstration, and medical records staff visits to other hospitals to see its system in practical use elsewhere.

Working in partnership with Hugh Symons Information Management who provided the back file bureau scanning services, the Trust has digitised 287,000 patient records, each containing on average 200 pages. This totals some 57.4 million images. The project originally went live in August 2010.

A scan-on-demand approach was adopted for people coming into outpatient clinics with inactive files cleared at the same time. In other words, Milton Keynes Hospital is scanning everything. If the hospital needed a record back urgently while the back file scanning was in process, it would be sent back via secure FTP. The hospital never had an issue where notes were unavailable because they were being scanned.

A "big bang" approach was adopted and all specialities in outpatients went live at the same time. There was some dual operation with both paper and electronic notes as it took nine months for the back scanning to be completed. This approach was taken to avoid processes being disjointed - some departments using paper others electronic - as it was felt that this might increase clinical risk.

DIGITAL REPLICATED PAPER
Further to input from clinicians, CCube Solutions created an electronic version of the medical record to mirror the format of the paper notes. All clinical correspondence is stored in the EDRM system along with colour photographs, ECGs, CTGs (Cardiotocography) and reports. The system is intuitive and easy to use which has enhanced clinical acceptance of it. This helped to significantly reduce training time.

Page   1  2  3