October 19, 2015 Industry news
Enterprise Content Management helps you take control of your information and improve your processes
A view from Steve Rudland, OnBase by Hyland
It’s commonly held that 80% of the information in a healthcare system is unstructured. This is to say that it is stored in emails, photographs, diagnostic images, electronic documents, and yes, on paper. The “paperless NHS” is a good soundbite, but when you push for a vision of what benefits a paperless NHS would bring, people often struggle to get beyond reduced storage overheads, and reduced staffing costs (or job losses, to strip away the HR niceties). The problem is that these business cases seldom withstand real scrutiny. It’s often just as cost effective to store most of the paper under a mountain in Wales, or down a salt-mine in Cheshire as it is to scan, index and digitally store it.
The benefits of an enterprise content management programme don’t lie in simply scanning the paper backfile. They lie in the process improvements that arise when an organisation has control of its unstructured information. These improvements may mean faster processing of referrals, easier association of patients with implantable devices, more effective distribution of board or committee papers, or being able to ensure employees are current on policies and procedures. Getting a grip on your processes reduces costs, improves efficiency, reduces risks, and improves your reputation with patients.
In admissions alone, savings of £140,000 in stationery costs, and £110,000 in the transport costs of moving records between sites.”
In order to get to “paperless”, any organisation needs to firstly take the responsibility to stop printing. Printing documents that are destined to be scanned is doubly wasteful; wasted printing costs, wasted filing and management costs, wasted transport costs, and wasted scanning costs.
Additionally, paper needs to be removed from processes at the point of entry, not archived at the end to reduce storage space. Moving paper through an electronic process reduces the risk of it being lost, enables multiple simultaneous reviewers, and provides a complete audit trail of its journey, thus enabling processes to be measured and improved upon through the elimination of bottlenecks.
Finally, relevant historical paper should be digitised as required. Emphasis on “relevant” and “as required”. There is little benefit in scanning and classifying the records of the deceased unless they are needed for research, or for medico-legal reasons. In either case, they should only be scanned on demand rather than as a matter of course.
Applying these principles to just one process – admissions. Capturing patients’ registration documentation upon admission, and making their relevant admission forms (medical history, consents, etc) available for electronic completion electronically on a tablet was calculated by one NHS Trust as providing an annual saving of £140,000 in stationery costs, and £110,000 in the transport costs of moving records between sites.
GS1 standards enable electronic records to be created that capture details of the medicines, patient, caregiver, care location and equipment and consumables utilised.
This means patient notes and changes to treatment plans can be updated and communicated in real-time and relayed to healthcare professionals at every interaction.
Getting to paperless is often represented as an end in itself. It isn’t. Eliminating paper from the business processes in a hospital is an enabler for improved, automated processes, reduced risks, increased patient safety, and enhanced reputations.