Case note tracking deployed at SASH

Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust has gone live with a new health records management and tracking system from 6PM.

The service includes a location-based filing system and radio frequency identification technology, which involves records being automatically tracked via sensors as they are transported around the hospital.

Motorola SmartMobile handheld devices allow users to quickly locate an individual record that could be amongst several hundred in an office or clinic.

The new system went live in September. Head of outpatients and health record services Jackie Brown told eHealth Insider that the tracking system the trust had in place previously was very poor.

This meant there was no guarantee that the correct notes would be with the right clinician at the time needed.

Brown said the trust provides outpatient services across a number of sites and the new system has “more or less negated” negative feedback at the East Surrey site about notes not being in the right place at the right time.

She said the team is “yet to tackle” issues at other sites. It takes time to bar code and track each record and training is being rolled out over time, but she expects the same positive outcome across the trust.

The workforce needed to file and locate medical records has already been reduced by 11.5 whole time equivalents – all achieved by not filling vacancies – and Brown expects to reduce this further.

“It stops people having to go around the site for hours trying to find the records,” she explained.

She said Surrey and Sussex “entirely relies” on paper records for patients, but is moving towards electronic solutions. Imaging and discharge summaries are available electronically and the trust is embarking on some pilots using digital dictation.

“The ultimate goal is to get to electronic document management full stop, but this is an interim measure,” Brown added.

The next stage of the trust’s program will be an enterprise document management system.

Additional cost savings features with the new 6PM system include automated clinical prep along with third party storage and retrieval management.