Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals NHS Trust – a FAX solution Case Study

Electronic, network fax increases efficiencies; helping healthcare organisations to meet targets

Healthcare providers are relentlessly challenged to deliver healthcare more effectively and improve patient care with reduced operating costs. Government guidelines, such as appointment and admission waiting list times, have to be met and patient confidentiality and compliance adhered to.

Business technology enhances back-office processes

ProcessFlows business process technology and solutions integrate with existing back office systems. They leverage functionality and save ‘admin’ time by replacing manual processes, such as faxing, medical record retrieval and the collation of test results, with automated, electronic processes.

This enables you to speed up and improve the way you deal with and securely distribute patient information, throughout the entire organisation.

Efficiently manage appointments, admissions and the secure sharing of patient information

Integrated text messaging communications for appointments and reminders

Our SMS patient notification solution (Appointment ProcessFlows®) helps to cut the number of missed appointments, which cost the NHS about £700 million a year. The solution integrates with the popular EMIS patient records system and/or any email environment. It provides a bi-directional text message appointment system which is convenient for patients to use and it automatically updates the records system with appointment changes.

Secure document management for medical records

ProcessFlows document management solutions integrate with existing systems. They sit ‘underneath’, storing all electronic information – X-rays, clinical test results, GP letters, referrals, etc, in a centralised repository. The result is that all documents can be very quickly accessed from familiar line-of-business interfaces, which keeps things simple. Additional workflow capability can be added to automate processes at any time in the future.

The Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals NHS Trust Case Study

Improving cancer care

In line with Department of Health guidelines, Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals NHS Trust continually aim to speed up the diagnosis and treatment of cancer patients.

The earlier a cancer is diagnosed, the greater chance it can be treated successfully and patient survival rates will improve.

Responding quickly to GP referrals starts in Admissions

Dealing with GP referral paperwork manually takes time. So, when the Government set targets stating that any patients suspected of having cancer must be seen by a specialist within two weeks, the admissions department turned to the hospital’s IT department for ideas and help on how to help speed-up cancer referrals, which are normally received from GPs by fax.

Manual faxing slows up productivity

Processing manual faxes is inefficient. Paper faxes are easily misplaced; they get picked up from the fax machine in error and drift off and land under desks, never to be seen again. Dealing with manual faxes was also disruptive. Staff were regularly going from their desk to the fax machine to sort out a paper jam or to collect received faxes. Calling to confirm receipt added to the time factor.

Electronic, network faxing streamlines the process

Mike Davies, who was IT Consultant for Wexham at the time, took-up the project to replace Admission’s manual fax processes with a digital faxing alternative, to fast-track fax referrals.

The Trust chose to implement OpenText RightFax

Mike said;

We needed to be certain that any solution interleaved with the Microsoft Outlook Client and Exchange Server, as our users spend a great deal of time working in this environment. Not having to deploy new client software was an important consideration for an over-burdened IT Department. The installations were well planned and time-tabled. We did encounter a few technical issues during the installation, but the installation Engineer resolved these knowledgeably and with the minimum delay.

For users, network faxing is simple; just like sending an email, so they didn’t have to learn anything new as it all happens in the familiar desk-top environment.

For managers, electronic network faxing is secure and efficient. Not only does it help to improve patient care, by speeding up the admission process, it also saves costs. Manual fax machines can be decommissioned and their ‘expenses’ cut from the annual budget.

Mike Davies said;

 RightFax delivers critical business documents where you want, when you want – reliably, economically and securely.

Easy installation and integration

RightFax provides a centralised infrastructure for mission-critical document delivery. It can be integrated with existing IT infrastructures – the RightFax server and client are certified by Microsoft – to provide desktop fax technology and e-document delivery capability across the entire enterprise.

Mike said that;

Comments from the Project Board were extremely positive. Users find the system incredibly easy to use, as the technology is almost transparent to them. The number of cancer referrals processed within the target two weeks allowed has gone up considerably. Over 90% of patients referred are now seen within the target period.