DAY-FORWARD SCANNING SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCES COSTS FOR THIS NHS TRUST
NORTH BRISTOL HOSPITAL NHS TRUST MAKES PATIENT TREATMENT MORE EFFICIENT WITH ON-DEMAND SCANNING SOLUTION
“Throughout the project the NHSBSA were friendly and approachable. We received regular communications, immediate support when we requested records and they used a reliable courier service. Overall outstanding service from the NHSBSA.”
Deputy Head Patient Records, North Bristol Trust
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KEY RESULTS
ANNUAL COST SAVINGS
MEDICAL RECORDS DIGITISED
FILES PER WEEK NO LONGER DELIVERED BY HAND
THE BACKGROUND
THE CHALLENGE
The Trust stored a total of 400k medical records off-site in two warehouses with a further 800k records held with off-site storage providers. Around 850 files were being delivered to the hospital and other premises each day.
Patients’ records could not always be found or retrieved in time for their appointments, meaning not all of the patients’ historical information was available to the clinicians.
KEY CHALLENGES
1.2 MILLION RECORDS AT MULTIPLE LOCATIONS
COMPLETE RECORDS NEED TO BE FOUND AND RETRIEVED IN TIME FOR PATIENT APPOINTMENTS
APPROXIMATELY 850 FILES BEING DELIVERED TO DIFFERENT LOCATIONS PER DAY
THE SOLUTION
NHSBSA, which provides support services to the NHS, engaged with OPEX to discuss their requirements, and quickly established that the OPEX® Falcon® series of scanners was the best available product in the market for the type of work required, and invested in 15 Falcon machines for the work at hand. As NHSBSA’s workload has expanded, the investment in OPEX hardware has continued, to the point where there are currently 42 OPEX machines deployed across the NHSBSA estate – all capturing a combination of legacy and day forward medical record files, plus the notoriously difficult ‘Lloyd George’ GP files
The OPEX Falcon scanner is designed in such a way that it enables a single operator to deliver a single touch ‘prep and scan’ solution, quickly transforming unstructured paper files into structured file content alongside images and metadata – ready for onward processing and ingestion into EPR systems. The end result enables clinicians to make informed decisions about patients based upon the electronic information captured and presented for them.
THE FUTURE
The Trust’s current records library is stored in a warehouse on the outside of Bristol in order to make every record readily accessible and easily obtained. Once the scanon-demand system has been fully implemented, record storage can be moved to a less accessible and less expensive location, allowing the Trust to realise even greater cost-savings.
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