Ideagen manages Central Manchester docs

Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is using Ideagen software to populate its web-based electronic patient record system with scanned documents.

The trust, which has developed its own ‘Central Intelligence’ portal as part of creating a wider EPR known as ‘Chameleon’ is using Ideagen’s dart Knowledge Worker software as a portal content engine to handle the publication of scanned documents.

It is also using Opex scanners from the company to do the initial scanning, starting with outpatients. EHI visited Central Manchester in October, when Helen Ainsbury, the trust’s director of informatics, explained that the trust wanted a system that was as easy and intuitive to use as Facebook or eBay.

Chameleon organises patients into lists under a specific clinician’s care, so they can see who they are responsible for, and then gives them a task list of what investigations, treatments or other actions are needed, and who is responsible for them.

As such, it requires considerable integration between trust systems holding digital information. The Ideagen software enables documents to be added, and also for clinicians to search through them using a carousel view.

“We have got an agreement with Opex to scan documents, and Central Manchester is now scanning very fast, starting with outpatients,” said Andrew McIntyre, who has led on work at the trust for Ideagen.

“The portal content engine software then takes this information and publishes it. We also have a viewer that spins documents around in a carousel view, because one of the complaints of clinicians is that they cannot flick through scanned notes in the way that they can flick through notes.

“We turn the scans into a book, so they can find out what they are looking for quickly.” Central Manchester is planning to go live with its system imminently, starting with two wards at the Manchester Royal Eye Hospital, and then moving on to the rest of the trust.