White paper: Electronic Document Management (EDM)
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Whitepaper: Electronic Document Management (EDM) White paper: Electronic Document Management (EDM) By Dr Peter Crouch January 2011 This white paper addresses the principles of electronic document management (EDM) and the current market trends. The paper underlines the importance of deploying an efficient system specifically tailored towards GP practices. EDM over recent years has become a vital process for GP practices to achieve paper light status.
Whitepaper: Electronic Document Management (EDM) Contents Page 1. Overview 3 2. What is Document Management? 4 3. The problems associated with paper-based documents 4 4. Why document management? 4 5. Becoming paper-light 5 6. What is workflow? 5 7. Saving time and money 5 8. The importance of an integrated Document Management System 6 9. Conclusion 6 10. About Docman 6
Whitepaper: Electronic Document Management (EDM)
1. Overview
Many practices have achieved a substantial return on investment (ROI) on their document management system, benefitting from improved
processes around the practice, to work smarter and not harder.
This paper outlines the principles of electronic processes and the importance of ensuring a system removes all the headaches associated with
document management and administration within a GP practice. Along with demonstrating a measurable return on investment an EDM
system improves services to a patient. Over 5,000 GP practices are currently using Docman for their EDM processes.
About the Author
Dr Peter Crouch is a Managing Partner at Taw Hill Medical Practice and is The Principal Forensic Physician for Thames Valley Police.
Taw Hill Medical Practice is a modern training practice serving a young, rapidly expanding population in North West Swindon in Wiltshire.
The practice has 10,000 patients , two partners, four salaried doctors, four nursing staff and nine admin staff (including a data entry clerk
and two part-time scan clerks). The practice registers 50 new patients per week. The practice receives 400-500 documents daily (pathology
results/clinical letters/out of hours notifications) and has an entirely digitised medical record. The practice has revolutionised its document
management by utilising PCTI’s Docman.
3Whitepaper: Electronic Document Management (EDM)
2. What is Document Management?
People mean different things when they describe document management but a broad definition of document management is likely to
describe the process whereby an organisation’s documents are handled, processed, stored and retrieved in order to support an organisation’s
decision making processes.
General Practices have been ‘managing’ documents for many decades. No practice clinical or admin staff would be unfamiliar with that sinking
feeling when a bulging postbag arrives. The increasing number, variety and complexity of documents each requiring multiple actions and
responses can each collude to present a real challenge for clinicians and their admin teams as they try to deliver modern healthcare.
3. The problem associated with paper-based documents?
Despite the constant push towards modernising by digitising the primary care paper record, there remains several undeniable advantages
associated with ‘old fashioned’ paper.
Unsurprisingly, most of the perceived advantages that are associated with the physical presence of paper are also disadvantages in all but the
most straightforward of scenarios. The major problem with paper is, of course, the effort expended on manual filing and retrieval plus the space
required for storage. Most practices that have not digitised their records will seem to have acres of practice floor space dedicated to holding
paper records.
4. Why document management?
When I started my career in Primary Care, I undertook locum appointments for over 20 practices. Every practice had a different system but all
operated along the same basic lines. Each clinician had individually named pigeon holes and paper correspondence was sorted into these. The
only way to find an elusive letter that wasn’t immediately available was to search though everyone else’s in-tray. Documents would move from
pigeon hole to pigeon hole until they were processed by one of the group, but you never really knew why or how many letters finished up in
anyone’s in-tray. Comments were handwritten or stamped on the paper record. It was far from ideal – bottlenecks frequently formed with some
individuals in-trays overflowing and delaying results reaching the record. You could suddenly find your pigeon hole filling up with documents
that you suspected no one else wanted to process. It was not always easy to see who, if anyone, had seen or passed on the documents before
they arrived with you.
The problems associated with paper based systems and historical processes arise mainly due to the single physical location of paper. Postage,
photocopying and faxing aside, paper processes tend to be ‘serial’ – paper passes from one physical in-box location to another. Paper can’t easily
be traced without doubling the administrative workload by keeping a log. Auditing the paper path can also be prohibitively time consuming.
This paper outlines the principles of electronic processes and the importance of ensuring a system removes all the headaches associated with
document management and administration within a GP practice. More importantly than a return on investment an EDM system improves
services to a patient.
Over 5,000 GP practices are currently using Docman for their EDM processes.
4Whitepaper: Electronic Document Management (EDM)
5. Becoming paper-light
Digitising paper by simply scanning and attaching correspondence to the computerised healthcare record may solve storage and retrieval
issues and go someway to solving remote access and transmissibility issues, but digitising is only the first step towards moving to the next
stage of active document management.
Ultimately it would make sense not to have to receive the documents in paper form at all avoiding the need to scan paper into a system in the
first place but until Secondary Care organisations can send documents to practices electronically, some scanning will be required.
We sat down and defined our practice’s needs. We decided that we needed a responsive, reliable, auditable system that stored and displayed/
transmitted immediately on-request clinical correspondence to the clinicians. Some letters need appointments with doctors or nurses or
for actions to be taken routinely, soon or urgently and this needs to be clearly recorded. So the range of outcomes can be quite complex
and if you add the need to communicate a copy to a range of colleagues for information and tasking reception to book a routine/soon/
urgent appointment with the doctor, nurse, or other healthcare professional this can all be a large set of tasks to arrange. This underlines the
importance of an effective and efficient document management and workflow system. We knew how we processed incoming letters and we
sought a system that would support, not dictate, how we wished to work.
The first thing we realised was that there were few systems specifically designed to assist family practitioners delivering UK healthcare. Many
business document workflow systems are born of the simple need to process decisions to authorise. This can be as simple as authorising
purchase orders or granting leave applications or similar actions. Many document management processes require the information to be
stamped “Approved” or “Rejected” and once the decision is made, the document moves on to the next department in the organisation’s
process chain.
6. What is workflow?
Workflow describes the creation of the desired pathway through an organisation for managed documents. Intelligent workflow describes
systems that enable users to dictate the route that documents will travel based on comments concerning the content of the document or
actions based on the type of document.
The benefits associated with intelligent workflow accrue because not everything needs to go the same route and re-routing documents based
on comments made by those processing the documents saves thinking time. For example letters with no action required can be filed with a
note saying “Please let the patient know that no further action is required if they ask”. It is here where Docman reduces the time we spend on
processing documents in our practice, whilst ensuring data quality and consistency.
7. Saving time and money
We looked at several business solutions when we sought a document management solution for our practice but the solutions available were
mainly financially or document storage focussed and we soon realised that it would take considerable effort to tailor these systems to deliver
healthcare document management. However by looking at a system to remove administration touch points, we found many efficiency gains.
Effective document management requires responsiveness, resolution, reliability and versatility. The advantages associated with a well
designed electronic document management system are:
• Simultaneous access to the same document
• Instant availability from multiple locations
• Traceability and transmissibility
• Synchronicity (keeping all comments on all copies visible by all)
• Intelligent workflow
The availability of all these were the factors that influenced our choice of document management software.
5Whitepaper: Electronic Document Management (EDM)
8. The importance of an integrated Document Management System
A vast amount of letters must be reviewed daily by a practice; therefore it is vital that systems improve and continue to enhance the processes
involved. With the opportunities associated with electronic processes, intelligent systems are required to maximise efficiencies. Rather than
taking 7-8 mouse clicks to process one document, the ability to process a document with 1-2 mouse clicks will save practices a great deal of
administration time.
By running a complete document management solution seamlessly alongside a clinical system a practice can ensure all documents are
managed efficiently. Additionally an EDM system can act as an intranet or storage of non-clinical documents. This introduces the ability to view
any document instantly and workflow any document from a patient letter to an agenda for a business meeting. This ensures complete freedom
of information, whilst managing the workload electronically through an intelligent workflow.
9. Conclusion
Deploying an electronic document management system will create measurable efficiencies. There are also many other benefits from the
service to patient’s to improvements in data quality and data safety. With times changing fast for many organisations, ensuring that an
investment in a system that is future-proof will ensure continued efficiencies and opportunities to develop efficiencies where possible.
Becoming paper-light is a key driver for electronic document management systems, but the right system ensures an effective day to day
running of a GP practice. It is vital that electronic processes are tailored specifically to the variety of processes within a practice so that minimal
user intervention is required, so that patients are the focus and not paper. Docman helps many practices deliver this.
10. About Docman
Docman is PCTI’s flagship solution that revolutionises how organisations manage documents electronically. The solution includes next-
generation action based workflow and advanced Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology enabling intelligent document matching and
filing.
EDT is a complete solution that delivers interoperability between Primary and Secondary Care enabling the secure and seamless transfer of
electronic documents.
PCTI products benefit over 5,000 GP Practices and Hospitals, processing almost 1.5 million physical and electronic documents per week and
maintaining detailed records for over 20 million patients.
For further information
To discuss how Docman can benefit your practice or to arrange a free, no obligation
demonstration please call our sales team on 01977 664496 or email sales@pcti.co.uk
Online Demonstration
www.pcti.co.uk/onlinedemo
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