UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL OF NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE NHS TRUST
DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT PROJECT
C-Cube News takes an in-depth look at how an Electronic Document Management Solution (EDMS) has proved a much-needed answer to the balancing act of storing and accessing documents within a busy hospital environment.
Faced with a health records library which was quickly becoming swamped, and patient records growing at an unsustainable pace, the University Hospital of North Staffordshire NHS Trust needed to take drastic action.
A strategy for the management of health records was launched, with the decision to switch towards the electronic storage of paper records.
A business case was produced, outlining the proposal to gradually transfer paper records to electronic format, thus reducing storage and staffing costs and ensuring records were available at the right time, in the right place for those who needed them.
OITUK was selected as the preferred supplier to provide a document management system to the University Hospital of North Staffordshire NHS Trust. The system was installed in April 2005.
Commencing on a small scale of 20,000 pages per week, this has now progressed to an average of 90,000 pages per week. And since commencement, the library now has over 100,000 case notes stored electronically. This has provided a huge amount of space within the library, reducing health and safety risks for staff.
The system is also networked, with more than 300 users regularly accessing patient records via their workstations. The process has enabled the scanning of records which would have previously been stored off site, drastically cutting the cost of storage for the trust. Since September 2005, records of deceased patients have automatically been transferred to electronic storage, and there is now a programme in place which enables records of patients who have not attended for a period of 12 months or more to be scanned.
Following the implementation of the new Electronic Patient Record (EPR), OITUK has been able to work with the EPR supplier to provide access to all clinicians, and to view records through a single sign on, making access to the archived records easy. Proposals are now in place to commence scanning of current patient records.
“The process has enabled the scanning of records which would have previously been stored off site, drastically cutting the cost of storage for the trust.” - University Hospital of North Staffordshire NHS Trust
For information about OITUK, the provider of the solution for this site, please visit their website at www.oituk.com. To learn more about OIT’s DocFinity suite of integrated document management and workflow solutions, contact Optical Image Technology at 814-238-0038, visit our website at www.docfinity.com, or email us at info@docfinity.com.
