22
PRINT.IT
01732 759725
DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT
Currently
North Bristol
NHS Trust
stores about
1.2 million
medical
folders
off-site
North Bristol NHS Trust has
selected electronic document
management software (EDMS)
from CCube Solutions to replace
all paper case notes with an easy
to use digital system that provides
6,000 clinicians, nursing and
administrative staff with instant
access to patient medical records.
The CCube Solutions’ EDMS
will complement the Lorenzo EPR
solution procured from Computer
Sciences Corporation (CSC) in
November 2015. It is the first
contract won under a framework
agreement signed in October 2016
that allows CSC to offer CCube’s
EDMS to any Trust using Lorenzo
that wishes to digitise paper
medical records.
Currently North Bristol NHS Trust
stores about 1.2 million medical
folders off-site, with around 850
files being delivered to Southmead
Hospital and other premises each
day.
Neil Darvill, North Bristol NHS
Trust’s director of informatics, said:
“The business case for the EDMS
project is predicated on a scan-
on-demand model where only the
patient notes for people booked to
In light of the NHS funding crisis and
the lack of additional capital available
for key digitisation projects, CCube
Solutions and Genmed have introduced
a new type of funding model designed
to help Health Boards meet a
Government deadline to be paperless
at the point of care by 2023.
The two companies are joining
forces to offer a cost-effective bespoke
managed service that they say will
allow NHS Trusts and Health Boards to
fund their transformation from paper to
digital medical records.
This will include CCube’s electronic
document management software,
project management, IT hardware,
support, maintenance and the back
scanning of all legacy records whether
outsourced or done in-house. The cost
to Trusts and Health Boards is packaged
by Genmed under an umbrella contract,
with monthly or quarterly billing.
Robin Modak, Genmed’s chief
executive officer, said: “The NHS is
experiencing a capital famine at the
moment. The huge upfront capital costs
of software systems and back scanning
make it very difficult for Trusts and
Health Boards to introduce the new
services they have been instructed to by
the Department of Health. Our managed
service model provides a practical,
straightforward revenue-based way to
solve the paper problem, which, as it
spreads the costs out, is treated as an
operational not a capital expenditure.”
He adds that Genmed is unique in
the way it provides managed services; it
is vendor neutral and has a completely
transparent pricing structure. “We
charge a 6% fee on cash flows. So, if a
contract is £100,000 per quarter, the
customer will be billed £106,000 plus
VAT. It’s simple and straight forward,”
he said.
It is also tax-efficient, being HMRC-
compliant for VAT recovery, and off
balance sheet, which is important
for Trusts and Health Boards with no
Capital Resource Limit (CRL) headroom.
Vijay Magon, CCube Solutions’
managing director, added: “All Trusts
and Health Boards know they need to
get rid of paper and transition quickly
to digital delivery. With Genmed, we’ll
be targeting those who have yet to do
so by providing an efficient and risk-free
way to buy not only our software but all
the associated components required to
close costly medical libraries.”
attend clinic will be processed, not
everything in the library. This saves
a huge amount of money given that
the other records will be destroyed
in line with our retention policies
and procedures as and when they
reach their expiry dates.”
Out of a total of 1.2 million
folders, the Trust estimates that it
has 223,100 active patients who
will need their records scanning. As
each folder contains an average of
150 sheets, this means 33,465,000
pages are likely to be scanned by an
outsourced scanning specialist.
North Bristol NHS Trust is
currently piloting EDMS in two
areas: lung cancer, a low volume,
high complexity clinic; and
dermatology, a high volume, low
complexity department. It expects
NHS Trust extends paperlite project with new electronic document
management system and Kodak scanners
North Bristol NHS
invests to save
to complete the full EDMS records
scanning roll-out by April 2019.
Paperlite
In parallel with this programme,
the Trust is working on a paperlite
project to expand PAS[1]
functionality within Lorenzo to
include real-time data capture.
Darvill said: “We simply can’t
afford to keep generating paper at
the pace we are, given the number
of patients we see – around 1,300
outpatient and 200 inpatient
attendances each day. The purpose
of the paperlite project is to look at
how we capture clinical information
immediately at the point of care
rather than writing notes on paper
and scanning them afterwards, as
this clearly defeats the purpose of
putting in an EPR in the first place.”
Until the paperlite initiative has
evolved, so-called ‘day forward’
scanning will be managed in-house
using newly bought Kodak Alaris
production scanners to capture,
index and import paperwork into
the CCube EDMS.
Capital expenditure on the
CCube EDMS, Kodak Alaris
scanners and capture software,
along with other implementation
costs comes to £960,000. Over a
four-year period, the Trust expects
to save over £1.3 million on the
operational expenditure associated
with the running of its paper-based
processes and libraries. Much
of these savings will come from
closure of its off-site facilities by
October 2018.
Tax-efficient digitisation
