Most medical practices have filing areas brimming in patient charts, medical records, laboratory results, Health Insurance forms and all the other documentation associated with the practice? Today, everything must be documented. Patient files are often unwieldy and cumbersome. Lost charts and patient privacy are an increasing concern as Privacy Legislation requires proper security and authorisation of all paperwork.

Any growing or busy practice is challenged to keep up with patient files and the backlog of paperwork. their people spend much of their time doing administrative tasks that do not provide health care benefits to the patients. These clerical tasks include creating patient files, filing documents, retrieving documents,copying documents and archiving documents.

As the practice grows, adding new support staff to manage patient records is expensive and therefore, often put on hold. Finally, space is a premium – sometimes there aren’t enough examination rooms for patients. That is why more and more medical offices are going paperless.

Many doctors are choosing to move away from paper-based patient records and gain the benefits of a document management system. Electronic medical records are being used within organisations to allow medical care providers to gain quick and easy access to patient medical records. An electronic medical record system allows doctors throughout a hospital or office to look at charts and medical histories of patients without having to search files or wait for medical support staff  to get the information.

Client Focus - Queensland Hearing:   Specialist Medical Practice

Attune (previously called Queensland Hearing) is a private company owned by a group of working partners. The company employs almost 100 people over many sites and has an aggressive growth objective of tripling turnover in the next three years.

With a rapidly growing patient base already reaching 75,000, Attune was struggling to find the space to store the high volumes of patient documentation. Each Attune site sees an average of 40 clients a day producing over 240 new files across the organisation daily.  Health Services legislation requires Attune to retain all paediatric files until a patient is 21 years old and all other files for 7 years.  These files need to be stored long-term but must also be retrieved regularly in a simple fashion for client updates and repeat visits.

The physical storage space had reached its limit some years ago and was no longer able to cope with the growing volume of files. This left Attune with no alternative but to store thousands of cartons of files at an off-site facility, which created difficulty in quickly accessing documents when they were needed. The cost of accessing a document from the storage facility within 24 hours was $50 a time, and this cost increased if the file was needed more urgently. In addition to the retrieval costs, the time employees spent retrieving patient files made this solution a very expensive one to sustain.

Furthermore, it was impossible for the business to absorb the costs. If a client requested a copy of their file, Attune was forced to pass the cost of retrieval and administration onto the client. For a business that prides itself on first class customer service the situation was untenable, and the issue was one Attunes’s General Manager, Sean Smith, was passionate about addressing.

This short term solution also created other serious challenges. Attune patients often attend more than one site and files were regularly being copied and sent by post or fax from one site to another. Not only was this a costly exercise, but should a file get lost in transit, Attune could be in serious breach of legislative compliance.

It became obvious to the board that with the aggressive target of tripling turnover in the next three years, client files would also at least triple, and the issues of space and document accessibility were only going to get worse.

Attune needed a solution that would solve several issues:       

• The lack of storage space.
• The cost of document storage and retrieval.
• The time wasted retrieving documents.
• Providing better customer service without incurring further costs.
• Finally, the solution needed to be easy to implement and simple to use.

The Redmap Solution

It became apparent to Sean Smith that client files needed to be scanned and stored electronically and he began looking for providers of software and services that could meet Attune’s needs.  Redmap’s software met all of the business requirements, and Sean says, “We chose Redmap over its competitors because the solution was simple to implement and understand whilst other software, offering similar capabilities, appeared over-complicated and cumbersome”.
As each patient completes a visit, Attune staff add a header sheet to the patient notes complete with indexing information. At the end of each day, an administrator scans the documents and Redmap‘s CaptureEzy product automates the filing into the Redmap ManagePoint database.

All patient files and records are now stored in one central location allowing administrative staff to access the relevant file simply by entering the patient name, patient number, or document type. ManagePoint’s “plain English” search function also enables the staff to locate files by searching on the document contents rather than just Index information. This feature clearly distinguishes the Redmap solution from the paper-based alternative and competitive products and retrieving patient records is now quick, easy and free!

Another benefit from this centralised document repository is the simple way the database can be backed-up so that in the event of a disaster the documents can be restored with a minimum of impact. 

Attune also implemented Redmap’s ManageAnywhere web access module at their Head Office. This enables all staff to access the patient information from any web browser either at one of the many Attune sites, from home, or from any other Internet access point. This ability to view client information from any location has eliminated the need to send files in the post or by courier and provides a far more efficient service to customers.

Attune is delighted with how the Redmap solution has reduced the amount of space needed to store files both in the office and off-site. With the client information stored in ManagePoint, the off site storage space has been decreased and an entire room in Attune’s offices, previously full of filing cabinets, can now be put to more productive use.  Further, the time taken to retrieve a file has decreased from 24 hours to just a few seconds, translating into huge savings in both costs and staff time.

Administration staff can now access information instantly, and there is no longer a need to search for files on co-workers’ desks, in untidy filing cabinets or ask for files to be pulled from the off site storage facility. Not only has the Redmap solution solved Atune’s space and retrieval issues, it has also eliminated the need to pass on the cost of file retrieval to the patient, thus enabling the business to maintain and improve its customer service to an ever growing client base.

In the words of Sean Smith, “The Redmap solution is simple and secure, provides value for money and immediate access to files regardless of location. It is essential to a growing private healthcare provider”.

The Redmap solution is simple and secure, provides value for money and immediate access to files regardless of location. It is essential to a growing private health care provider.