Cancer centre deploys digital dictation system
Clatterbridge Cancer Centre ensures faster turnaround of administrative documents
The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust is expecting to see improved workload management and a reduction in the turnaround time for clinical correspondence after deploying BigHand’s digital dictation technology.
Currently being piloted by a select number of clinicians and their secretarial support, the system is set to gradually replace the previous analogue dictation solution.
The trust, which is home to one of the largest NHS specialist cancer treatment facilities in the UK, chose to partner with BigHand to speed up the transportation of its clinical notes from clinician to secretary and ultimately to enhance patient care.
Sue Eagle, head of administrative services, said: “At Clatterbridge we run a comprehensive network of off-site clinics so we needed something flexible which would enable the administrative staff to turn around clinician’s notes more speedily. Using a tape-based method was proving extremely time-consuming while the secretary waited for the arrival of the tapes from outlying clinics to then be transcribed. With BigHand for BlackBerry’s digital dictation solution it is instantaneous, so the administrative work can begin immediately, improving turnaround times significantly.”
The implementation process, which is due to be completed by spring 2014, will see around 80 clinicians, consultants, registrars and secretaries use Blackberry hand-held mobile devices with BigHand’s digital dictation technology for greater of mobility and use on the go, incorporating 140 users across the trust in total.
Eagle said: “We pride ourselves on improving the health and wellbeing of our patients through compassionate, safe and effective care and therefore we try and treat patients as close to their homes as possible. However, treating patients at one of our peripheral clinics brings with it its own complications as we often have difficulties entering their IT systems and getting past firewalls.
“BigHand’s mobile technology will assist us perfectly, eliminating the need for access to these systems and allowing clinicians to send their dictated notes in real time while still remote.”
After the initial rollout is complete, Clatterbridge will begin to introduce BigHand’s Clinic Builder module which will see integration with the PAS system to help to streamline the dictation and improve data quality and safety.