NHS Tayside has become the first NHS organisation in the UK to employ Voice Technologies’ WinVoicePro to achieve electronic correspondence between all clinics and GP practices; equating to a saving of more than £250,000 per year.
In collaboration with DocMan creator PCTI, Voice Technologies integrated the WinVoicePro software with NHS Tayside’s Electronic Data Transfer service to enable the Board to route documents, once approved by clinicians, directly to GPs. Each document is received into the DocMan system, which ensures secure delivery of patient details and removes the need for GPs to scan and shred a paper copy, with documents already automatically stored within the local GP's DocMan system under the corresponding specialty.
NHS Tayside first implemented Winscribe from Voice Technologies in 2008, but with the addition of WinVoicePro earlier this year, the Board has since been able to achieve greater administrative efficiency. The electronic document approval process enabled by WinVoicePro has been calculated to save NHS Tayside 63p per document through a reduction in printing and distribution costs. With the Board sending an average of 432,500 documents electronically per annum, the saving to NHS Tayside is over £250,000 every year; excluding the saving in associated staff costs.
Anne Colville, Admin & Clerical Line Manager, Women & Child Health at NHS Tayside, says: "The digital dictation system implemented over two years ago has seen a real benefit to the working practices within the department and to the service we are able to provide to our patients. Now with the implementation of electronic signing of letters and automatic sending of letters to the GP, this will continue to allow us to provide an efficient and timely service."
To guarantee a secure and reliable workflow process, Voice Technologies have worked closely with NHS Tayside to ensure WinVoicePro fully integrates with existing systems. To further support this, the company enlisted IT specialists Microtech Support to install and configure WinVoicePro at all NHS Tayside hospitals and 69 GP practices.
WinVoicePro runs seamlessly alongside Winscribe and has also allowed NHS Tayside to reduce the risk of patient misidentification through compatibility with the national unique patient identifier (Community Health Index), which ensures patient details are automatically verified according to their identification code.
Managing Director of Voice Technologies, Heather Wylie, commented: "NHS Tayside has shown great commitment to developing a document creation and approval process that offers benefits to all involved - both financially and with regard to the time saved. It takes time to build a process that synchronises all software and it is only through having all the necessary foundations in place that this is possible, but once they are, the rewards are substantial. In a time where budget cuts are imperative, the saving of over a quarter of a million pounds a year is a significant achievement."
WinVoicePro allows users in Primary and Acute Care to instantly connect, guaranteeing patient treatment information is available to clinicians and GP’s faster than ever before. Linking directly with an organisation's Patient Administrative System, Electronic Patient Record or Document Management System, WinVoicePro captures patient details and episode history and automatically inserts this into standard document templates to reduce production time and remove the risk of error.
The contract with NHS Tayside was negotiated under the National Framework Agreement, with Voice Technologies being the sole supplier for NHS Scotland.
About Voice Technologies
Voice Technologies is a leading supplier and developer of digital dictation and speech recognition, operating in healthcare, legal and government sectors. The company's consultative approach helps organisations to integrate digital dictation software into business processes in order to increase efficiency and streamline administration, helping to save time and money and make the best use of business resources.
In addition to being a platinum supplier of Winscribe, Voice Technologies continues to develop its own software, with WinVoicePro being the latest product from the company to help organisations work towards greater efficiency, offering a completely electronic document creation and approval process. WinVoicePro was designed to work seamlessly alongside Winscribe to provide a complete end-to-end solution for letter, report and document creation.
With offices in Paisley and Sheffield, Voice Technologies works with clients across the UK, including being the sole supplier for digital dictation and speech recognition solutions on the National Framework contract for Scotland and an approved supplier to the Framework contract established for NHS Trusts on Yorkshire and Humber, as well as local government bodies and leading law firms. For more information visit www.voicetechnologies.co.uk.