Earlier this year for our online event series HTN Now, we welcomed industry electronic document management expert Vijay Magon, who shared his 30 years’ of insights on the subject of creating a single true source of patient information.
Vijay, from CCube Solutions, highlighted the challenges around unstructured data and how technology can help transform healthcare records management, as well as how to add value to an electronic patient record system and ensure seamless integration.
Vijay cited that as much as 80 percent of the information that exists on a patient is unstructured, noting that it can be found in paper forms and lives outside of the electronic patient record in a number of siloed systems and repositories.
However, he said, “It’s not just about paper. Some 65 to 70 percent of new patient information is actually created electronically through a variety of IT systems in use within an organisation and across organisations: EPR, clinical portals, primary and acute care systems, specialty systems, laboratory information management systems. In these systems, we might find Word documents, PDF files, photography, electronic forms, emails, spreadsheets.”
When every second counts
A programme at Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust integrated the CCube electronic document and records management system (EDRMS) directly within its electronic patient record system, Cerner. “What this means is clinicians don’t have to open another browser – and that can be significant in lots of ways,” Vijay said.
“A simple sum to save 10 seconds each for 3,000 staff equates to over eight hours of time – but we know it’s significantly more than that, and that time saving of seconds from a simple integration really can add up.”
He explained that the close integration provides around 3,800 staff with immediate access to digital patient notes contained in the CCube EDRMS, viewed from within Millennium, without them having to log in to another system or view the application in another browser.
When the integration went live, Debbie Phillips, CCIO and consultant surgeon from Milton Keynes University Hospital, highlighted “the importance of opportunities to save clinical time within a digital system can’t be underestimated given the number of patients we have to treat.”
The EDRMS runs in a Microsoft Azure cloud environment, reflecting the hospital’s digital cloud first strategy.
Structured data: the solution
Vijay went on to focus on structured information: “Structured data is absolutely necessary for digitally-enabled clinical transformation, so we need something that can capture the unstructured information and manage it – turning it into structured information that can be more useful.
“Unstructured information can be inputted into the EDRMS where it will be managed and stored. The technology can be configured to manage the files that are captured over a long period of time, supporting work around retention and destruction policies. Once set up, the EDRMS provides a clinical view of the whole record contained within the platform, supporting clinicians by providing them with access to all the information that is available on a patient.”
To learn more about EDRMS, contact CCube Solutions here.
