The Trust has digitised 95% of patient records after a CQC inspection highlighted its mixture of paper and digital notes as a clinical risk.
The Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust in Liverpool, the country’s only specialist neurosciences Trust, has digitised 95% of its patient records with Apogee Corporation, which has led to what it calls “significant improvements” in clinical efficiency and patient safety.
A Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection in 2019 highlighted the Trust’s mix of paper and digital case notes as a clinical risk.
“The service used a mix of paper-based and electronic patient records. Not all systems were linked and some staff found it difficult to access some records in a timely manner. Staff could not adapt patient care plans within electronic records to address individual patient needs,” the regulator said.
The Walton Centre decided to eliminate all paper-based records and a competitive tender process led to the selection of Apogee and its secure document scanning and data capture services.
Time saved
With almost all patient records now scanned, digitised, tracked and seamlessly integrated into the Trust’s electronic patient record system (EPR), clinicians can retrieve critical patient data – including medical, treatment and device histories – to improve patient outcomes. The implementation of a new in-house scanning facility ensures any new patient documents are available in the EPR within 48 hours of outpatient attendance and seven days of discharge from an admitted episode.
The time saved from the process has allowed medical records staff to be redeployed to other departments, contributing to enhanced operational efficiencies and a faster patient flow through the hospital. The Trust has been able to clear its backlog of 5,000 patients and can register new patients on arrival for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The project has served to improve staff outcomes too. The volume of paper documents was presenting space issues, with records stored in unsafe areas. The removal of these records has freed up so much on-site space that the Trust is repurposing an area into a long-awaited communal staff room to help support employee health and wellbeing.
All patient records at The Walton Centre are scanned and tracked through a secure end-to-end process, with each physical file undergoing rigorous quality assurance checks and maintaining a full audit trail. Apogee’s scanning workflows are fully compliant with BS10008 standards and all data is handled in accordance with ISO and British Standards.
