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Hunt ‘very conscious’ of paperwork overload – could mobile technology provide the answer?

vodafone1 Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt says his recent series of visits to the NHS frontline have left him shocked at the amount of paperwork that eats up budget and gets in the way of patient care. Hunt has also stated his aim to make the NHS paperless by 2018 – but a recent survey by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has shown that the fight to reduce form-filling is still at very early stage.

The ICM Research survey of over 6,000 RCN members revealed that nurses spend around 2.5 million hours a week on non-essential paperwork. The majority also said the amount of clerical work has actually increased in the last two years. Under the weight of this evidence it would seem that reductions in time consuming manual processes need to happen sooner, rather than later.

Digital projects create more time to care for patients and release savings

NHS Western Isles in Scotland provides a source of inspiration for organisations that want to cut down on paperwork”. Western Isles nursing staff – who previously spent 40% of their time inputting data following patient visits – have started using a
digital writing solution that captures handwritten notes electronically and sends the converted data back to a central server for processing. The results have been significant, both in terms of improved patient care and financial return.

“For an investment of around £68,000, we calculate that we will make non-cash releasing savings of £83,000 each year and enable our staff to make more than 5,000 extra visits to patients each year. That’s a remarkable result,” said Christine Chlad, eHealth Project Officer for NHS Western Isles.

Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust generates more savings and staff efficiencies by mobilising workflows on mobile devices

Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is another example of an organisation that has deployed tablet devices to significantly reduce the need for nurses to travel back to a desk. Instead of filling out paper forms, nurses now use tablets to securely access and update records in the patient’s home. As a result Blackpool’s nurses now save up to an hour a day and complete up to ten more patient visits a week.

Brian Woodford is Head of Public Sector for Vodafone UK, the company behind the success stories at both NHS Western Isles and Blackpool. Woodford argues that the reinvention of old processes is now becoming common practice.
“Increasingly, we’re working closely with our healthcare customers to look at everything from end to end – we examine the way people work, the processes, even the buildings and physical resources they use every day – and then introduce technology that helps to create new efficiencies and deliver a better patient experience.”

Woodford says that streamlining operations in this way is a discipline that Vodafone has much experience of. It’s also an area of expertise they’re continually developing. For example, Vodafone is currently introducing its healthcare customers to the next generation of workforce mobilisation in the form of TotalMobile, a mobile application platform that integrates back-end systems such as Electronic Patient Records and GP Systems and intelligently pushes the relevant information to a user’s device. TotalMobile also automates and mobilises classic admin irritations like expense forms and HR reviews, saving even more time and cost.

“If you talk to the senior executives of healthcare organisations they will tell you that beyond reducing cost, the next big challenge is enhancing the service they provide to the citizen by automating processes,” says Woodford. “TotalMobile will help because it gets the right information at the point of care and eliminates many expensive front line and back office processes. I think you’ll see more and more healthcare organisations taking this kind of system up to provide a better service – and just as importantly deliver the cashable efficiency savings that they need to stay on budget.”

“ For an investment of around £68,000, we calculate that we will make non-cash releasing savings of £83,000 each year.”

Christine Chlad,
eHealth Project Officer,
NHS Western Isles

vodafone2 Find out more about Vodafone’s solutions for healthcare:

– call 08458942710

– contact your account manager

– search for Vodafone Partner Zone on the Guardian website for more heathcare resources

Efficiency and savings from mobile applications

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