Darlington digitises records with TNT

County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust aims to digitise all of its medical records in a contract with TNT worth up to £20m over ten years.

TNT will provide records management, logistics, scanning, printing and facilities management across the trust’s hospitals and community sites.

Durham and Darlington went out to tender for records management, scanning and archive services in May 2011. The value of the contract over 10 years was estimated at £10m-£20m.

The trust’s associate director of operations and performance Sarah Perkins said it was, “embarking on a partnership with TNT which supports our transformation from traditional paper-based health records to one where records will be viewed digitally.”

“We are excited to be working with TNT,” she added.

“During the procurement process they have demonstrated a high level of understanding of the needs of the health sector.”

“The service will also provide auditable databases, thus maintaining strict governance and compliance requirements.”

During the first phase of the project, patient notes will be transferred to the company’s high-security records management centre.

The ‘scan on demand’ facility will enable TNT to pick and scan a patient’s record when the patient visits an outpatient clinic or is admitted to hospital.

The company will also provide pre-printed documents that medical staff will complete manually and will be scanned into the system.

The records management system will automatically classify different types of document to help structure the content of the electronic patient record.

The trust hopes this will allow easier navigation and identification of key documents by the end user.

Durham and Darlington currently uses Ascribe’s patient administration system as well as CSC’s iSoft iCM for clinical functionality.