Technology
delivery accelerates treatment and provides a superior pathway experience. The digitisation of paper documents, and the streamlining of hundreds of workflows reduces waste in medicines and materials. Digitisation leads to a more cost-effective organisation and a more fulfilled workforce. NHS England’s Transformation Directorate has plans to “extend digital maturity” in Trusts, focusing on data-sharing. Digitisation will prioritise maternity and child health records. The overarching ambition is for digitisation to reshape health provision rather than simply to enhance existing services. The immediate aim, however, is for “the majority of health and social care services to have digital foundations in place, including electronic patient records” by March 2025. The Transformation Directorate points out that only 20 per cent of NHS organisations are currently digitally mature and looks forward to a time when “paper processes and outdated systems are replaced by modern electronic health or social care records”, enabling staff and people “to safely access information when they need it and at a time and place that is convenient”.
Time for a rethink on documents Digitisation is, however, not an eternal panacea. Print will be with us for the foreseeable future because it provides backup and is a legal necessity. The unique protocols surrounding medical records also include requirements for paper back-up. To deliver digital gains right now, a redesign of many data-handling processes and workflows is required to support the work of frontline staff. Data has to flow smoothly across clinical settings and between professionals and their support staff – especially in the Integrated Care Systems. Achieving true interoperability becomes
problematic when implementing new care systems, leaving departments in separated silos. Under the records management ISO standard 15489-1:2016 endorsed by NHS Transformation, documents must be authentic, reliable, complete and unaltered, and useable. These are demanding requirements when NHS organisations continue
to depend on legacy IT infrastructure.
Transforming data-handling Last year, a study7
revealed the NHS in England
spent £1.19bn on storing paper records over five years and 12 per cent of hospitals were still paper-based. The NHS is fully aware of the challenges and has developed frameworks for transformation, focusing change on improvements to the patient pathway. The era of the fully connected office is just beginning in the NHS, using data to optimise all aspects of information-handling that support clinicians. Given how commercial organisations handle information today, it is clear the data flowing around legacy applications in the NHS can be more efficiently managed, particularly in relation to the electronic patient record (EPR) system, which is so critical to the seamless delivery of care. If a hospital is still using manual methods, nursing staff may have to complete 50 pages of documentation for a single patient admission. Wider implementation of automated digital
processes will eliminate gaps in the data exchange between complex administrative processes and systems – between new applications and legacy technology. Automation
To deliver digital gains right now, a redesign of many data-handling processes and workflows is required to support the work of frontline staff. Data has to flow smoothly across clinical settings and between professionals and their support staff – especially in the Integrated Care Systems.
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will accelerate internal and external-facing processes.
It will unify digital and print-related processes, eliminating errors or duplications in relation to patient communications, for example, with full integration of print operations. The data provides a foundation for the integration of scan workflow solutions, using intelligent document routing and automation to reduce manual processes.
Sustainability commitments must go beyond print solutions Any change must meet the NHS’s emphasis on sustainability. The NHS’s ambition is to become the world’s first carbon Net Zero national health system by 2045, with requirements covering work practices that reduce energy-use and consumables consumption, along with less e-waste.
Sustainability is therefore about more than
reduction of the vast amount of printing still undertaken – important though that is. The NHS also requires sustainable business practices in its managed service providers and suppliers. From the beginning of 2023, for example, all contracts worth more than £5m per annum have required contractors to publish a carbon reduction plan for UK Scope 1 and 2 emissions, plus a subset of Scope 3. Scope 3 emissions are about 99% of the NHS’s total emissions, which is why there is such focus on suppliers that can meet the criteria.8
Suppliers that understand the cyber-security landscape In an organisation undergoing digital transformation, such as the NHS, sustainability ambitions run alongside resilience initiatives, including cyber resilience. According to a global
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