SRC deliver Trust wide roll-out of WinScribe digital dictation system at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals with UK’s first HL7 PAS integration

London, 26 June 2007 - SRC, the UK’s leading digital dictation and speech recognition provider within the Healthcare market, has completed the Trust wide roll-out of the WinScribe digital dictation system at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust (BSUH). The deployment, which covers 25 departments and over 800 users, provides BSUH management with full visibility and control over their dictation workflow, including the proportion of work which is completed by three outsourced transcription service providers. The system will help BSUH to improve document turnaround times and realise significant cost savings.

The SRC roll-out, which was supported by Sussex Health Informatics Service (Sussex HIS), is the first time that a digital dictation system has been fully integrated with a Patient Administration System (PAS) using the HL7 healthcare data-interchange standard in the UK.

The integration work, completed by SRC’s dedicated Implementations Team, ensures that when the secretary opens a dictation the WinScribe system automatically launches the appropriate template and populates it with GP details, patient information and data obtained from the Trust’s PAS and other databases. The essential patient identification is captured by the doctor or author using barcode technology connected to dictation devices.

The deployment also includes a customised version of the SRC Document Storage Module, ensuring that all transcriptions are saved within a centralised store and readily available to all authorised personnel.

Mark Cannon, Associate Director, Elective at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals Trust said: “Administrative support to clinical teams is a crucial and integral part of the delivery of effective health care. Being able to utilise new technologies to improve the effectiveness of these services is critical. The combination of leading digital dictation technology, and customised integration and training services, which SRC has delivered, has resulted in a highly successful project that we are confident will save time for doctors and secretaries.”

Chris Hart, CEO at SRC said: “Rolling out the complete digital dictation solution, including the first ever UK HL7 based integration, in only four months was achieved by close team working between SRC, BSUH and Sussex HIS staff. We are proud to be at the forefront of helping NHS Trusts to save costs and better allocate their resources to aid patient care through the rapid implementation of such projects.”

The system has been fully integrated with three outsourced service providers who are providing transcription services to BSUH. The digital dictation system can automatically route certain job types to the service providers without the need for user intervention. The SRC WinScribe system also ensures doctors and secretaries are provided with status reports and visibility on how the outsourced dictation is progressing.

“We believe that the ability to route work will ensure typing backlogs never occur and will allow us to manage our costs.” adds Mark Cannon. “The seamless use of outsourcers means that secretaries can quickly review, approve and distribute documentation.”

The improved audio quality, advanced workflow management and visibility which the WinScribe digital dictation system affords to doctors and secretaries makes the system much easier to use than the previous tape based system that was being used. As Mark explains, “the previous system of using analogue tapes, whilst popular, was actually quite cumbersome. There was always the risk that tapes got lost or "chewed up". The tapes themselves were not very secure and included a lot of confidential patient information that was easily accessible and, should backlogs build up, proved very difficult to locate if required urgently. Typically the level of involvement by doctors was enormous. They had to find a secretary that was available and physically hand them the tape for transcription. The new system automatically routes dictations to groups of secretaries, who can share the workload and ensure urgent dictations are turned around quickly and efficiently.”

SRC provided BSUH with full deployment services and end user training for all doctors/authors, secretaries and administration staff using the WinScribe system. Talking about the training Mark said: “Not only did SRC explain the system concisely and clearly, they were also flexible to our working schedules and fitted the training to suit our timescales.”

Mark continued: “SRC have worked rapidly to bring the benefits of the powerful combination of the WinScribe system, outsourced service providers and PAS to the Trust. The SRC solution will help us better manage the complex communications between various systems and deliver benefits in terms of better patient care coupled with increased savings in time and money across all departments.”

Chris Hart, CEO at SRC added: “This is the latest of a series of successful SRC Trust wide deployments. We have also delivered document creation solutions to Chesterfield Royal Hospital, Homerton Foundation Hospital, East Sussex and Royal West Sussex and are now delighted to be working and building our partnership with BSUH and Sussex HIS.”