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SCANNERS
Powered by Kodak production
scanners, MISL, a UK-based bureau
and business process outsourcing
(BPO) provider, has halved the time
needed to scan the patient medical
records of The Royal Free London
NHS Foundation Trust.
MISL, which won the £4.5 million
contract to provide document
scanning services to The Royal
Free in November 2013, expects
to complete the task of scanning
750,000 patient files by Christmas
2015 – 24 months ahead of
schedule.
The project involves the
digitisation of the hospital’s entire
medical records archive and
the ongoing scanning of patient
information as new clinical notes
are created, so-called ‘day forward’
scanning. In total, MISL expects to
create some 300 million images.
Originally, the project was
expected to take five years but new
processes put in place by MISL, the
hard work of staff and investment
in more productive scanners have
enabled MISL to slash the time
needed to complete the project.
World-class expertise
One of the most famous medical
centres in the country, The Royal
Free is a teaching hospital located in
Hampstead, north London that each
year treats around 68,000 in-patients
and 500,000 out-patients.
It offers world-class clinical
expertise in kidney, liver and bone
marrow transplants; breast and
plastic surgery; and the treatment
of tumors. It was the first hospital in
the UK to carry out a liver transplant
between a live adult donor and a
patient and the first to introduce a
PET scan for breast cancer.
Will Smart, The Royal Free’s
chief information officer, says that
digitisation will help the hospital
be more efficient and improve
patient care. “Digitising our medical
records library is in line with the
Government’s QIPP agenda, Jeremy
Hunt’s challenge that Trusts should
be paper-lite and, of course, our
desire to keep improving patient care.
Fast access to notes via computers
delivers this and means our clinicians
now have patient records right at
their finger tips.”
Production scanners
To meet contractual requirements,
MISL hired new staff, leased a new
building dedicated to the project
and bought new IT equipment – an
investment totalling £500,000.
This included the purchase of five
Kodak i5600 and six Kodak i5800
production scanners, along with
Kodak Capture Pro Network Edition
imaging software.
Steven Clarke, MISL sales &
marketing director, said: “So that
we hit our agreed SLAs (service
level agreements), minimised
downtime, enhanced productivity and
ensured we met BS100081 rules,
we upgraded to the latest Kodak
scanners. Dealing with medical
records is not like scanning invoices
or bank statements. You’re potentially
playing with someone’s life if there
isn’t the level of quality in the images
scanned. It’s very easy to forget this,
which is why we wanted the best
equipment to do the job.”
Mandatory SLAs
MISL agreed various SLAs with The
Royal Free depending on the record
type. For archive scanning, it had a
five-day turnaround from collection
to image upload; two days for day
forward scanning; and two hours for
Accident & Emergency records on
receipt of files at the off-site MISL
bureau.
Once scanned, images – more
than 500,000 a day – are securely
transmitted via leased line to The
Royal Free’s Open Text electronic
document and records management
(EDRM) system, from where they can
be accessed by all clinicians at point
of care.
In the case of The Royal Free’s
600-plus transplant patients, all
scanning is done on-site using a
Kodak i5600 scanner.
Given the importance and
urgency of much of the material
being scanned, image quality and
reliability are essential. Kodak Alaris
scanners and Kodak Capture Pro
imaging software excel in both areas,
ensuring that MISL continues to
meet its 0.01% image failure target
rate.
For MISL operations director
Francesca Foy, service and support
is another area in which Kodak
Alaris scores highly. “In tandem with
image quality, service and support
was crucial to the whole project and
another reason why Kodak Alaris was
selected. Their service is second to
none, as we just couldn’t afford to
have down-time,” she said.
Further reassurance is provided
by robust disaster recovery plans put
in place by MISL to ensure business
continuity.
Productivity gains
Use of Kodak i5600 and i5800
production scanners capable of
processing 170 and 210 pages per
minute respectively, with no daily
volume limits, has resulted in a 20%
improvement in operator productivity
compared to previous equipment
deployed at the bureau.
This, says Clarke, has delivered
real benefits. “We’ve been working
to tight margins, so the 20% gain
means we’ve hired 70 staff to
service The Royal Free account, not
84 – that’s a saving straight to our
bottom line,” he explained.
Kodak production
scanners have halved the
time needed to scan
The Royal Free medical
record archive
Scanning in
double-quick time
Will Smart, chief
information officer,
The Royal Free
1. BS10008 is a legal admissibility and evidential weight standard for electronic
information. The standard ensures records have been quality assured to set levels and
are a facsimile of the originals given paper records are destroyed.
The Royal
Free expects
to complete
the task of
scanning
750,000
patient
records
24 months
ahead of
schedule
