Taylor-Phillips, Sian, Grove, Amy L., Hoffmeister, Sharon, Wheaton, Margot, Coult, Sarah, Essex, Joanne, Hackney, Janice, Cioccio, Sandra Di and Clarke, Aileen (2014) Going "paperless" in an English National Health Service (NHS) breast cancer screening service : the introduction of fully digital mammography. Health, Volume 6 (Number 5). pp. 468-474. ISSN 1949-4998.
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Abstract
Objective: To test the feasibility of a fully paperless system, termed "paperlite" in a UK breast screening service. To demonstrate in NHS practice, how workload and workflow could be improved by moving to a paperless system and discovering what impact this has upon the complexity within the service.
Setting: Warwickshire, Solihull and Coventry Breast Screening Service in the West Midlands of England.
Methods: Quality improvement methodologies were employed, including value stream mapping, task analysis and a time-and-motion study. Results: The screening centred screened approximately 50,000 women per year. If they were to implement a paperless system, the administrative workload would decrease. The time saving per batch of screens, which could be achieved by moving to the paperless system ranged from 19 to 56 minutes (mean = 36 minutes). When calculated by batch the mean time saving per woman screened by moving to the paperless system was 42 seconds. This equates to 583 hours of administrative work per year in a centre screening 50,000 women.
Conclusions: The paperless system has many benefits compared to the original system in terms of reductions in waste, time and cost. The simplification and standardisation of the process resulted in fewer tasks and interfaces where errors could occur, hence inadvertently improving patient safety. The limitation of the work is the heavy reliance on technology, live interfacing with computer databases and software stability is necessary for a paperless system to be used in NHS practice.
| Item Type: | Journal Article |
|---|---|
| Subjects: | R Medicine > R Medicine (General) |
| Divisions: | Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine > Medicine > Warwick Medical School > Health Sciences Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine > Medicine > Warwick Medical School |
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Medical screening -- England, Breast -- Examination -- England, Medical technology -- England |
| Journal or Publication Title: | Health |
| Publisher: | Scientific Research Publishing, Inc. |
| ISSN: | 1949-4998 |
| Official Date: | February 2014 |
| Dates: | Date Event February 2014 Published 23 December 2013 Accepted 11 November 2013 Submitted |
| Volume: | Volume 6 |
| Number: | Number 5 |
| Page Range: | pp. 468-474 |
| Status: | Peer Reviewed |
| Publication Status: | Published |
| Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons open licence) |
| Date of first compliant deposit: | 28 July 2016 |
| Date of first compliant Open Access: | 28 July 2016 |
| Funder: | University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust |
| URI: | https://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/61854/ |
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