The Western Cape’s Khayelitsha Hospital has scooped yet another award – this time garnering the Ministerial Award for National and International Contribution in the Arts and Culture, Language, Heritage, Geographical Names, Museums, Libraries or Archives fields from the Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport in the Western Cape.
This latest award was given to the hospital in recognition of its drive to ensure that it delivers a world-class, patient-centric clinical service.
“A critical part of this move has been Khayelitsha Hospital’s implementation of the OpenText Enterprise Content Management (ECM) suite, in order to reduce physical documentation and paper-based files wherever possible within its processes, thus improving the management of patient files and information, increasing efficiencies and effectiveness, and ultimately, enhancing service delivery,” explains Trish Dicks, national strategy manager: ECM public sector at Datacentrix, a local OpenText global alliance partner.
“One of the major reasons for dissatisfaction with public sector hospitals and community health centres is long waiting times, something that the ECM project at Khayelitsha Hospital has managed to significantly reduce,” she explains.
“A critical part of this is to ensure that patient information is accurately and completely recorded, according to clinical, legal and ethical requirements; and an efficient system is in place to archive and retrieve digital medical records or patient files.”
This project has enabled Khayelitsha Hospital to convert its paper patient records into electronic format. OpenText ECM provides a central repository for the capturing of these electronic patient records with secure access control in a file structure.
It uses an indexing model that allows medical staff to quickly and easily access patient records using a few key words (indexing fields) such as patient name and hospital file number.
In addition, the ECM solution has been rolled out to the Corporate Services areas to enable the administration and management layers of the hospital to leverage the ECM benefits.
“The fact that patient file waiting times have been reduced to zero, as a result of the patient files being scanned and doctors now accessing these files electronically, made Khayelitsha Hospital an obvious choice for the Ministerial Award,” Dicks states.
“To date, more than 33 000 patients files have been scanned (including historical information) and almost 51 000 ‘episode folders’ have been scanned (content relating to 51 000 separate hospital visits).
“This ensures that this patient content is securely stored and accessible electronically by authorised personnel. This project has reduced the risk of case files not being stored effectively and placing the hospital at risk as well as increasing the likelihood of positive audit outcomes.”
This project has brought the hospital the following additional benefits:
* A reduction in the movement of physical files and related decrease in the risk of lost patient files;
This latest award was given to the hospital in recognition of its drive to ensure that it delivers a world-class, patient-centric clinical service.
“A critical part of this move has been Khayelitsha Hospital’s implementation of the OpenText Enterprise Content Management (ECM) suite, in order to reduce physical documentation and paper-based files wherever possible within its processes, thus improving the management of patient files and information, increasing efficiencies and effectiveness, and ultimately, enhancing service delivery,” explains Trish Dicks, national strategy manager: ECM public sector at Datacentrix, a local OpenText global alliance partner.
“One of the major reasons for dissatisfaction with public sector hospitals and community health centres is long waiting times, something that the ECM project at Khayelitsha Hospital has managed to significantly reduce,” she explains.
“A critical part of this is to ensure that patient information is accurately and completely recorded, according to clinical, legal and ethical requirements; and an efficient system is in place to archive and retrieve digital medical records or patient files.”
This project has enabled Khayelitsha Hospital to convert its paper patient records into electronic format. OpenText ECM provides a central repository for the capturing of these electronic patient records with secure access control in a file structure.
It uses an indexing model that allows medical staff to quickly and easily access patient records using a few key words (indexing fields) such as patient name and hospital file number.
In addition, the ECM solution has been rolled out to the Corporate Services areas to enable the administration and management layers of the hospital to leverage the ECM benefits.
“The fact that patient file waiting times have been reduced to zero, as a result of the patient files being scanned and doctors now accessing these files electronically, made Khayelitsha Hospital an obvious choice for the Ministerial Award,” Dicks states.
“To date, more than 33 000 patients files have been scanned (including historical information) and almost 51 000 ‘episode folders’ have been scanned (content relating to 51 000 separate hospital visits).
“This ensures that this patient content is securely stored and accessible electronically by authorised personnel. This project has reduced the risk of case files not being stored effectively and placing the hospital at risk as well as increasing the likelihood of positive audit outcomes.”
This project has brought the hospital the following additional benefits:
* A reduction in the movement of physical files and related decrease in the risk of lost patient files;
* Users can view the same document in OpenText ECM at the same time, allowing easy consultation between doctors;
* The need for large numbers of patient files in admissions areas has been decreased;
* Potential issues pertaining to lost files or missing content have been eliminated;
* The use of barcodes has increased accuracy and efficiency in the scanning, indexing, labelling and routing of content;
* The need for large numbers of patient files in admissions areas has been decreased;
* Potential issues pertaining to lost files or missing content have been eliminated;
* The use of barcodes has increased accuracy and efficiency in the scanning, indexing, labelling and routing of content;
* Structured workspaces enable functional teams to operate efficiently;
* Driven implementation of WiFi within clinical areas to enable access to digital patient files at the patient bedside.
Says Dicks: “The processes put in place at Khayelitsha Hospital are now being used to ensure that other hospitals implementing ECM will realise the same benefits, making certain that patients throughout the Western Cape receive improved patient care, reduced waiting times and securely, centrally stored patient records.
“As the implementation partner in this project, Datacentrix is proud to be associated with the Khayelitsha Hospital and would like to congratulate all those involved in the project.”
Says Dicks: “The processes put in place at Khayelitsha Hospital are now being used to ensure that other hospitals implementing ECM will realise the same benefits, making certain that patients throughout the Western Cape receive improved patient care, reduced waiting times and securely, centrally stored patient records.
“As the implementation partner in this project, Datacentrix is proud to be associated with the Khayelitsha Hospital and would like to congratulate all those involved in the project.”