The solution is being built using Orion Health's Concerto™ Medical Applications Portal and will allow clinicians at Leicester's hospitals to make requests electronically for patient notes, regardless of where the notes are stored across the Trust's facilities.

The requests will be downloaded onto PDAs used by medical records staff in the library units. The PDAs will have bar code readers attached, allowing staff to electronically "check out" the notes as they are removed from the shelves.

"Traditionally, case note requests at our hospitals have been handled via telephone, fax or email, a process that is labour-intensive," said UHL Project Manager Izhar Kler. "The new system we are building in co-operation with Orion Health will reduce the time spent requesting, tracking and chasing case notes and will help improve the quality of our audit and reporting."

Additional benefits of the new system include the ability to request patient notes 24 hours a day; standardisation of medical records processes across the hospitals in the Trust, and improved efficiency in storage space through the use of a 'random storage' system.

The solution will be extensively used by staff across the Trust. There are eight library stores at Leicester’s three hospitals, holding around 1.8 million active patient records combined with an additional 5.2 million speciality records. 4-5,000 UHL staff will be trained to use the document tracking system, with around 500 users anticipated to be accessing the system concurrently.

It is expected the system will go-live later this year.

About University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust
University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust comprises three acute hospitals based in Leicester: Glenfield Hospital, Leicester General Hospital and Leicester Royal Infirmary. The three hospitals merged to create UHL in 2000 to meet the increasing demands for providing better healthcare. The Trust is one of the largest acute teaching hospitals in the United Kingdom, employing over 12,000 staff.

Leicester's Hospitals have been rated as excellent for their quality of services in the Healthcare Commission's Annual Health Check, putting them top of the national league table for large acute teaching Trusts and in the top six of all Trusts nationally. The three hospitals - Glenfield, Leicester General and Leicester Royal Infirmary - cared for over 1 million people last year.

Research and Development at Leicester's hospitals continues to underpin much of our activity. For the third year running, we have achieved the highest possible rating from the Department of Health for all our NHS research programmes; no other Trust in the country has a better record.

For more information about Leicester's hospitals visit www.uhl-tr.nhs.uk

About Orion Health
Orion Health's easy-to-use applications and tools integrate and enhance existing healthcare information systems and deliver secure, universal access to information. The innovative company delivers an end-to-end information technology (IT) integration platform that brings together clinical content to improve clinician effectiveness and the quality of patient care.

Worldwide, Orion Health is implementing health information communities involving over 35 million patients with tens of thousands of active users. Orion Health's partners include leading health and IT vendors such as Oracle Corporation, Philips Medical Systems, LogicaCMG, Hewlett Packard, McKesson, and Sierra Systems. Orion Health also has more than 1,000 clients worldwide including Johns Hopkins Hospital, New York State Department of Health, Vermont State Department of Health, Central Washington Hospital, US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and many more.

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More information can be found at www.orionhealth.com.