Walsall to electronically tag paper records

Traditional paper patient records at Walsall Manor Hospital are to be electronically tagged to cut the number of files lost whilst being moved between departments.

As well as cutting the number of lost files, the tracking system, provided by technology company 3M, is designed to help clinicians access patient notes more quickly.

3M is providing Walsall with small plaster shaped Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID) tags, each containing unique codes. Every patient record will have a tag attached to it and the corresponding reference number entered into a database.

A new detection system installed at the trust as part of the £220,000 project will note the location of each record every time it passes a sensor, updating the information on the central database.

A trust spokesman told EHI: “At the moment, staff spend a lot of time searching for where the files are and we wanted to eliminate this.

"The new system basically means that it reduces the chances of hospital notes getting lost as they are tracked on their journey through the various departments. It’s a system which makes it quick and easy for staff to tag the notes and obviously means that the consultants can be confident that they are going to have the patient’s case notes for their appointments.”

“Records have got to follow a patient very quickly around the system,” said chief executive Sue James. “The system for tracking them in the past was designed to accommodate a much slower throughput of patients.

“Now we are finding that the notes are not keeping up with the patients' progress and that is causing problems.”

Staff have been informed of the sensor installations and the system is expected to be in use by the end of the month.

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