July 4, 2013 – CCube Solutions today announces that Aintree University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has won public sector project of the year in the Computer Weekly European User Awards for Enterprise Software.
Used by around 3,000 health professionals on a daily basis, the Trust has stopped using paper health records in clinical practice and installed an electronic document management system from CCube Solutions, along with custom portal to provide clinicians an electronic medical record.
Aintree University Hospital
Brian McKenna, Computer Weekly’s business applications editor, says, “Electronic medical records have been a big challenge for NHS IT and have dogged the service for years. Aintree has implemented a system which provides clinicians with navigability through the information. Forms recognition technology is being used to index the documents automatically which improves the whole usability of the system for clinicians.”
Aintree is the first NHS Trust to successfully use forms recognition technology, including OCR, to automate the process of recognising pre-printed forms – which make up 95% of the paper file - when digitising records. This ensures contents are correctly indexed even if forms are incorrectly filed in the physical records. This is in contrast to other Trusts where staff manually go through the paper files prior to scanning to check and order contents.
This type of technology allows the system to automatically “find” forms in the scanned patient record rather than clinicians having to “search” for them.
Published by Tech Target, Computer Weekly is one of the UK’s best known and respected enterprise IT publications. Launched in 1966, it is read by IT managers, IT directors and CIOs and has evolved into an online title receiving an average of 425,000 visits and 1 million page views per month.
Computer Weekly received a substantial number of entries for the enterprise software awards. The judges comprised a panel of independent experts from IDC, Forrester Research, Quocirca and Ovum, in addition to Computer Weekly journalists.
George Lawrie, vice-president and principal analyst, application development and delivery, Forrester Research, says, “We were impressed by Aintree University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust's focus on the benefits, both financial and clinical, of the solution.”
McKenna adds, “At Computer Weekly, we’ve never been about technology for technology’s sake. The emphasis is always on organisations solving real world business problems with technology and that’s what we were looking for in these awards. In a word we were seeking to showcase innovation - things that are new and technology solutions which deliver business benefit and value. I am delighted that Aintree University Hospital won because it demonstrated this so clearly.”
The Trust was recognised for its innovative approach implementing the electronic medical records system to enable instant access to patient information, guarantee case note availability at the point of care, improve efficiency, and reduce the costs, security risks and space associated with paper handling and storage.
Professor Mike Pearson, consultant physician, says, “Some Trusts have just scanned the whole patient record which is useless as doctors are presented with thousands of PDF pages and accessing information is almost impossible. The innovative indexing system developed for our solution means notes are always available and we can find many results as quickly or faster than using paper.”
Aintree is also the first NHS Trust to successfully work with a third party – Capita Total Document Solution - using a scan-on-demand approach to outsource the huge task of scanning its records library. Kodak production scanners and imaging software are used to do this.
Furthermore, a cleverly designed portal makes the record easy to use with a ‘timeline’ tool showing a patient’s medical journey over time and the treatment given - key for chronic disease management given patients see more than one speciality.
Around 282,000 patient files will be scanned which equates to 45 million pages. As outpatient case notes are used – on average – 2½ times a year, once a person’s file is scanned, the notes are available digitally for subsequent visits.
In close partnership with CCube Solutions, the project was driven by the Trust’s informatics department and Professor Mike Pearson who led a clinical advisory team. The solution cost £1.5 million.
While the primary driver behind the project was patient safety and care, operational costs will be substantially reduced with the Trust expecting to save of £1 million annually by closing its traditional paper library, reducing staff and avoiding the transportation costs associated with moving 4,200 patient files every day around the organisation.
Aintree has also gained 30% additional space [a whole floor] in a new £45 million building which is now used for clinical activities not paper storage - a £13.5 million estate benefit.
The project took 15 months and was completed on budget and to acceptable timescales.
This is the fourth time the project has been recognised as being innovative. Aintree University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has also won ‘Gold project of the year’ at Document Manager (DM) magazine’s annual awards scheme, and was shortlisted in the enterprise project of the year category at the Techworld Awards 2012, run by international publisher, IDG. Aintree also received highly commended in the UK IT Industry Awards 2012.
