Clapham Park Group Practice implemented Docman GP just over one year ago and have been reaping the benefits of paperless transfer ever since. The practice which serves a large patient base of 14,000 receives approximately 100 electronic letters per day.
Grant Burford, IT Lead discusses his journey to eliminate paper from the practice and create time efficiencies for the busy practice staff. “When I started at this practice we did not have Docman but having used it in my previous practice I told the partners ‘we need this’.”
Saving time with iWorkflow
“Using Docman makes us much more efficient as a practice. Previously we would receive our letters via the post and this would mean the Doctors started their day with a huge pile of papers.”
“It was important to me that we had a system that was intuitive and the workflow functionality in Docman is much more efficient for our Clinicians.”
Using Docman’s iWorkflow solution, the staff can electronically pass letters around the practice, always ensuring that they have reached the correct Clinician without the risk of the paper copy being lost. “We currently have some initiatives around ensuring that our high risk patients always see the same, dedicated GP and Docman allows this to happen.”
“The workflow is definitely the best feature of Docman. It enables us to save valuable time for all of our staff and the Doctors love it. It was simple for them to pick up and offers a ‘get it right first time’ solution.
Docman Hub
The practice benefits from Docman’s electronic document transfer Hub which sits at three of the local hospitals. Utilising Docman, the hospitals are able to send letters electronically to practices with attached metadata for fast and efficient filing.
“We currently receive approximately 50% of our letters electronically and 50% through the post. Our electronic letters come from King’s College Hospital NHS FT, St George’s Healthcare NHS Trusts and South London and Maudsley NHS FT. We receive all A&E documentation as well as Radiology reports and X-Ray reports.”
“EDT saves us so much time. The letters come in with attached metadata which automatically detects filing details making it a much quicker process, creating time savings of over two minutes per document when compared with the paper system. When they arrive they can be actioned quickly and easily workflowed within one click.”
Rejecting documents
“We also have the ability to reject documents through the Hub which is a much more efficient process than the paper option. If we receive correspondence for a patient that is no longer with our practice then we can instantly reject it back to the Hub, where it will be re-routed to the correct place. With the paper process, we would have to print the letter off and send back to the hospital through the post, where they would figure out where to send the document. During this time the patient will be waiting for that letter to be actioned.”
Meeting targets
“Receiving our A&E reports electronically is very important to us as we must act on emergency admissions within three days. If we were receiving these by post we would lose time waiting for them to arrive. EDT helps us to hit that response time much more easily as we receive them straight away, which means ultimately, we do not miss our targets.”
Overall
“Overall Docman creates huge time savings for our practice and we want to receive all of our letters electronically. I regularly run reports to see what letters we are still receiving through the post so that we can communicate with the hospitals that this is not how we want to receive them. We want to remove all paper where possible and Docman really helps us to do that.”