IBML has announced that Datatron, a scanning bureau based in the North East of England, has upgraded its existing ultra-high volume scanner system purchasing a new ImageTrac solution along with SoftTrac Capture Suite (SCS) software to support business growth, which has risen 70% over the past decade.
Founded in 1996 with its headquarters in North Shields, Datatron offers a broad portfolio of services from document, drawing and microfilm scanning to digital mailroom, invoice processing, data hosting and an unique Virtual Records Management service (VRM). Here paper documents are catalogued and safely stored in Datatron’s records management facility, but are available for customers to request digitally. They are delivered securely via workflow into a hosted EDMS. This service offers the low cost of records storage with the benefits of digital.
The company works with a range of private and public sector organisations including East Lothian Council, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust – a client the firm has had for over 20 years.
Even quicker than the previous model it replaces, the new scanner processes 286 pages per minute and was supplied by Spigraph who managed the installation, on-site testing, staff training and now ongoing service and support. Datatron will redeploy its existing IBML scanner and use for backup purposes.
IBML’s ImageTrac technology and SCS software reporting
Another reason Datatron chose to select IBML was the ability and simplicity to integrate existing in-house written applications for both reporting and image production.
Popay says, “There’s a lot of statistical information contained in IBML’s back end SQL tables which is invaluable and easy to access to create detailed production reports. This allows us to monitor the number of files and images scanned per client box for any given period and do live and historical reporting on throughput.”
This is crucial to monitor performance and status against client service level agreements (SLAs). In addition, granular and accurate reporting enables Datatron to modify and offer competitive pricing on work such as invoices, medical records, local authority or legal documents based on this comprehensive statistical information.
Located at its main North Shields facility, the ImageTrac scanner will connect to a new Microsoft SQL Server relational database management system with images then stored in a SAN using Datatron’s bespoke Production Image Processing application (PIPa). This unique software developed by Datatron - using over 23 years of document management experience - allows for one click output for all job types processed within the organisation. This is possible through the intuitive user interface which allows operators to build jobs to each client’s output specification performing operations on the fly such as image correction, OCR, indexing, barcode reading, bookmarking and database lookup.
New capacity to support NHS projects
The investment in new IBML scanning technology will enable Datatron to offer fast, quality and cost competitive services to all clients as well as provide headroom for growth.
To support the Government’s digital transformation agenda, the ImageTrac, however, will be put to work straight away scanning medical records as part of the Great North Care Record initiative.
This is a project spearheaded by Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals to make the sharing of medical information easier in the North East and North Cumbria among authorised health and social care practitioners. It is a huge initiative to make all patient data available on a single platform from Cerner to link the region’s hospitals, GPs, mental health, community and ambulance services.
The process of cataloguing and scanning client records, in particular medical records, is managed with great efficiency with the integration of Datatron’s own production processing software with NHS Patient Administration Systems (PAS).
Datatron’s software not only provides a seamless audit trail from pre-collection to upload (and ultimately the destruction of paper records) but it also provides pinpoint accuracy of where files are and their status within the digitisation process with the use of up-to-date patient data and accurate tracking.
