Barnsley Hospital deploys file and inventory tracking solution

Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has become the latest healthcare organisation to invest in 6PM’s File and Inventory Tracking System, iFIT.

The solution provides the tools for hospitals to manage paper health records, supplies, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, physical assets, and much more.

iFIT will empower medical records staff at the trust with modern logistics technology, enabling them to track and record using RFID tagging. RFID readers in corridors, wards and treatment areas will detect and record these interactions, drastically reducing occurrences of lost or missing records.

With the system, staff using hand-held electronic trackers will easily be able to find a set of notes, whether held in the library, office or other clinical area.

The technology provides a full audit trail of activity for information governance compliance. Instant benefits will be realised in the tracking, pulling, re-filing, preparing and auditing of patients’ records and will enable the trust to maximise its records library storage space utilisation and enhance the working environment for records staff.

Steve Wrightman, deputy chief executive of technology supplier, 6PM, said: “This contract represents another milestone in the innovation and partnership that 6PM brings to the NHS.

”Barnsley Hospital will reap the benefits from iFIT in the medical records department. It will provide a better patient experience by guaranteeing the right documents are in the right place at the right time, every time, and the trust will be able to build on the infrastructure for many more applications of the technology.

Jason Bradley, director of ICT at Barnsley Hospital, added: “This is another step forward for the trust in using new technologies to help us improve our service delivery. Initially this will help us to provide a more-efficient service for our paper medical records, but it will also help us understand how we use paper today and how we can become increasingly paperless.

Carol Cunliffe, medical records manager at the trust, added: “From day one the medical records department could see an immediate benefit. The libraries had become overcrowded with case notes and this posed quite a significant health and safety risk. iFIT has enabled us to move from strict numerical to location-based filing within our libraries and has all but eliminated the risk.

“Staff are also reporting that the system is quick and easy to use, much better than the previous method. Once all records are tagged and the fixed RFID network is in operation, we will see more efficiency in the whole clinic preparation process.”