Leading University NHS Trust – a Document Management Case Study

OpenText Alchemy Document Management Transforms Occupational Health Records Management

A leading University Hospital NHS Trust

Their Occupational Health department deals with the health, welfare and safety of over 7,000 staff, maintaining personnel, immunisation and clinical records, sickness absence and all accident/incident reports.

Managing tens of thousands of records

Occupational Health (OH) has to manage tens of thousands of records – both for current and past employees. Records have to be kept long after staff have left the Trust, sometimes up to 40 years.

Over time records storage became a particular issue. Records were stored in any available space often in boxes stacked 3 or 4 high, consuming valuable office and clinical space. Searching for files was often not practical and in the worst case could yield nothing other than frustration!

Electronic Occupational Health Records Management

Electronically archiving the records using Alchemy would eliminate the storage problem and provide fast easy access to the information directly to the desktop PC. Nursing staff would have more time to concentrate on their ‘frontline’ tasks within the department, not spend it looking for documents.

Alchemy was installed and integrated with their front office Occupational Health software to provide OH records access and recording for 20 users – doctors, nursing and clerical staff within the department.

Over 25,000 ‘terminated’ paper records were scanned by a ProcessFlows partner creating a fully populated database within a secure Alchemy data repository. Each record was indexed by family name, first name and date of birth.

Authorised users now have access to all documents in the repository via the interface by simply clicking on the Alchemy icon within the application. The 25,000 ‘terminated’ paper files were then securely destroyed.

Once the ‘terminated’ records had all been dealt with, step two was the input of current ‘live’ employee paper records held in the department.

In line with the aim for a ‘paperless office’, where possible all new documents are directly input via PCs in electronic format as they are generated, a task carried out in the OH general office by clerical staff. A scanning module facilitates the capture of paper records and documents are automatically routed to the relevant pre-set index fields to maintain the search criteria required for the document type.

Benefits in every area

Efficiency – Nursing staff can get on with their core duties.

Space Saving – The paper mountain is eliminated for good.

Security – Highly sensitive information is now stored in secure data repositories.

Accuracy – High availability and no mis-filing.

Collaboration – Ability to share records/information with other Trusts.

Integration – Fully integrated with the  Front Office Occupational Health system. Can be integrated with any OH Front Office system if required.

Environmentally Friendly – Questionnaires and correspondences that are electronically generated can be posted straight to the record rather than printed.

Now that the Alchemy system has successfully been implemented, ProcessFlows are exploring other innovative ways to further improve business processes and service delivery.