Doncaster halves turnaround time for clinical correspondence

Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has halved the average time for providing clinical correspondence to GPs, thanks to integrated digital dictation and electronic delivery.

Clinical correspondence system MedisecTrust was integrated with Talking Point Digital Dictation last year, automatically matching digitally dictated clinical notes with PAS patient details to produce clinic attendance letters at the touch of a button.

As a result, average timetaken to deliver clinical correspondence to GPs has been slashed from eight to four days.

“Nearly a third are being delivered within the 24 hour target we set ourselves andwe are confident we can improve on this over the coming months,” said Julie Ekins, Service Improvement Manager at the Trust.

The system enables customized workflows of outstanding dictations to be created by consultants, with transcriptions automatically appearing in relevant medical secretary workflows without them needing to search for them.

The most up-to-date patient information is downloaded from the PAS system into pre-populated letter templates when the voice file is opened; the completed documents are then reviewed, signed off and released for delivery to the GP electronically in a paperless process.

Jay Dugar, Consultant ENT surgeon at the Trust added: “Digital dictation is an obvious improvement on analogue but to hit the 24 hour delivery target, we needed to take the paper out of both the approvals process and the way letters were subsequently delivered.”

For a full case study and interview with Julie Ekins, please see the Jan/Feb issue of National Health Executive magazine by visiting www.nationalhealthexecutive.com