Pictured: (l-r) Lord Philip Hunt, Chair of Heart of
England NHS Foundation Trust, Lesley Conner, EDM Group's Business
Development Director, Andy Laverick, IT Director for Heart of
England NHS Foundation Trust, Sam Ferguson, CEO of EDM
Group
The Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust has signed a five year
contract with EDM Group to digitise millions of patients' medical
records across its hospitals and clinics.
As part of the £7 million contract agreement, more than
360 million archive images and thousands of daily files are being
tracked, transported, captured and scanned by EDM Group, one of the
UK's most experienced information management providers.
Using a large team of trained preparation staff, as well as
state of the art software and scanners, the digital images and data
are transferred onto the Trust's secure online workflow system
which allows authorised clinicians instant access to medical
records.
Speaking on the new contract, Andy Laverick, IT Director for
Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust, said:
"As one of the largest Trusts in England, the digitisation of
records is part of our ongoing commitment to drive up standards,
putting patient care and safety at the heart of everything we do.
Not only will using this new system enhance the overall efficiency
of the Trust, it will also help to reduce costs and increase the
security of our patient files."
EDM Group has implemented a daily schedule of document
collections from three of the Trust's sites. To meet compliance
requirements EDM Group has provided local facilities for Trust
staff to scan bar-coded file covers as they pack files. This
is then supplemented by EDM Group staff who also scan and pack
files, from which point the location of every packed file is
known.
Documents are then booked into EDM Group's tracking software,
with section-level header sheets created to facilitate indexation
at section level when the documents are scanned and uploaded onto
the Trust's electronic document management system. Images and data
are securely transferred via dedicated leased lines between EDM and
HoEFT.
In order to meet the Trust's service level target for urgent
admissions, EDM Group also provide a rapid response service in
which records are retrieved and scanned and made accessible within
two hours according to need.
Commenting on the service, Sam Ferguson, CEO of EDM Group
said:
"EDM Group has vast experience of working with NHS Trusts so we
are therefore delighted to be awarded this contract. We believe our
success was, in part, due to our capacity to meet the project
timescale, as well as the quality of our solution which addressed
all compliance issues at a competitive cost."
As part of the procurement process EDM became one of three
shortlisted companies bidding for the contract.
Commenting on the procurement process, Lynn Duggan, Medical
Records Manager at the Heart of England NHS Foundation said:
"When undertaking the procurement process we wanted to secure a
partner who not only represented the best value for money, but
could also securely process the large volumes of documents with
exacting auditability and traceability. EDM Group ticked all of
these boxes, and more."