Homerton tracks paper with 6PM

Homerton University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has gone live with 6PM’s tracking solution for its paper health records.

This means all patient records will be tagged with a radio frequency identification tag and sensors will pick up any movement of the record.

The trust was one of the first in the UK to deploy the Cerner Millennium electronic patient record system in 2003, as part of the National Programme for IT.

It signed a new, seven year contract directly with the company in 2012. However, it will now use 6PM’s system to track records instead of tracking them within Millennium. 

Robert Waddup, health records supervisor at Homerton, said the intelligent file and inventory tracking system, or iFIT, will also provide a full audit trail.

 “Trying to locate notes is an avoidable, time consuming process. iFIT will now help the trust to reduce this to an absolute minimum,” he said.

“Using handheld electronic trackers, the medical records team will be able to find a single set of notes in the libraries or in the offices, where a lot of notes are stored.”

This also means that notes will be filed on location basis, rather than in a number sequence. Instead they will, using the location tracker, be filed in the ‘next available’ slot.

The trust is also working with 6PM to track medical devices, beds and wheelchairs. Steve Wightman, deputy chief executive of 6PM said Homerton is the third Cerner Millennium site to use iFIT.

East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust also recently signed a contract to take the iFT system. Joanna Carter, the trust’s divisional director for clinical support services said this is part of the trust’s transformation project.

“The trust has invested a significant amount of money to ensure that we can provide rapid access to all our health records, thus helping to maximise patient safety,” she said.