Guy’s and St Thomas’ deploys BigHand

BigHand has announced that Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust has successfully deployed its digital dictation system across its 22 directorates.

The rollout, which included deployment at the Evelina Children’s Hospital, provides software licences to more than 2,500 users and has replaced the use of analogue tapes throughout the trust.

Rita Du’Pratt, the leader of the cardiovascular team, which was one of the first departments to go live with the system, said: “There are a number of benefits such as: clarity of voice quality; ability to view the length of letters – helping with organisation and prioritisation- and being able to view and type letters in real time – which has resulted in urgent letters being available for review before the clinic is over.

“Our experience is that BigHand has had a very positive reception from the secretarial staff in the cardiac department at St Thomas’ Hospital.”

The trust has also integrated BigHand’s digital dictation system with its outsourcing provider, Dict8 IT.

It says that as as a result, distribution of workload among teams has been far easier as managers can see backlogs and divert resources to achieve a faster turnaround time for clinic letters.

BigHand has already rolled out to a number of NHS trusts. However, Guy’s and St Thomas’ is one of its largest customers to date.

At the end of last year, BigHand launched version 3.5 of its digital dictation solution. It is now offering interested trusts a live demo, custom consultation or a 60-day evaluation.