Could the NHS benefit by going paperless?

Facebook.com/storetec

Storetec Services Limited

@StoretecHull www.storetec.net

A Freedom of Information (FoI) request by Spectralink discovered that 61 per cent of nurses in the UK still use handwritten notes, charts or verbal communication to share patient details, notes on medication and instructions for discharge.

This news comes less than a month after the Jeremy Hunt, secretary of state for health, announced plans to go paperless by 2018. If it shifted from paper to digital records, the NHS could improve its efficiency and accuracy – which would ultimately lead to a better level of patient care.

The FoI request also revealed that 34 per cent of staff regularly made use of electronic records to capture and share some patient details. However, these digital archives were not available on the ward floor and could only be accessed from a desktop terminal. According to the FoI request, only three per cent of staff used pagers to transmit patient data.

More than 100 NHS Trusts responded to the FoI request. Of these, none had any mechanism in place to record the amount of time healthcare professionals spent checking and then replying to messages each day.

In May this year, the Ponemon Institute released a study that found clinicians wasted more than 45 minutes each day due to the use of outdated communication technologies – noting the primary reason as the inefficiency of pagers.

Simon Watson, director at Spectralink, said: "Nurses and other healthcare professionals play a critical role in our everyday lives and should spend the bulk of their time focused on delivering exceptional patient care.

“However, we frequently see these highly-trained professionals spending far too much time on administrative tasks and being forced to use inefficient communication methods because they are not given the tools to help them do their jobs more efficiently.”

In November this year, a panel was created to examine the relationship between the NHS and modern technology. For example, the panel will look at how technology can be used to support patient consent and how people’s right to object is safely communicated and upheld.

The panel will oversee how issues surrounding patient confidentiality are resolved and it is focused on the the better use of data and information.

Storetec News/Blogs “http://www.storetec.net/news-blog/could-the-nhs-benefit-by-going-paperless”. Could the NHS benefit by going paperless?. December 16, 2013.

Storetec.