December 16, 2014 - When patients are referred by their general practitioners to care specialists, resolving their health issues can easily become a waiting game. Fortunately for patients at Rotherham Hospital, part of The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust (Rotherham, UK), the MEDITECH system has improved the speed in which patients are seen.
How did they do it? Project Manager and Lead Applications Specialist, Laura Mumby, recently sat down with us to talk about their 6.x system, and how the technology is helping patients get on the fast track to better health.
What was your process of scheduling referrals before you started using MEDITECH’s Electronic Patient Record (EPR)?
Before MEDITECH, we used to encounter administration referral issues and processing referrals could take anywhere from two to seven working days; sometimes a week or more would go by between receiving the referral to booking the appointment.
This resulted in some of our patients facing needless care delays. For years, we knew we needed to establish a single process for our referrals, and our lack of standardization was clear. Our EPR enabled us to put those standards in place and get the results we wanted from the start.
How is your process different today?
With MEDITECH, we have a central Contact Centre where we can enter referrals electronically—either directly into the computer or by scanning and archiving a paper referral. We get about 1,500 referrals a week and can keep track of all of them electronically, which is a big relief for our staff.
Processing a referral now only takes one to three days—a huge accomplishment. We’ve reduced our process times massively, while increasing our patient satisfaction in equal measure.
Have you seen other benefits from your EPR?
We’ve certainly benefited from MEDITECH all around—our hospital staff can now order labs, x-rays, and tests, as well as admit, refer, and discharge patients all electronically. Our next phase is implementing Pharmacy and e-Prescribing. I’m very excited for our Consultants and Nurses to see more of what the system can do, and in time to completely say goodbye to paper notes.