Helping Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust digitise 200,000+ medical records

The Challenge

The project to digitise medical records at Northampton General Hospital was driven by several pressing challenges. The hospital needed to improve patient care by providing clinicians with mobile clinical decision-making support, which was hindered by the inefficiencies of paper records. Managing patient flow through the 800-bed hospital was another challenge, as paper records slowed down processes. Additionally, the Trust had to address the logistical difficulties of an outdated records management system, requiring a more efficient solution. To meet these challenges, the hospital collaborated on a scan-on-demand service and utilised its in-house scanning operations, leading to the integration of MediViewer to centralise patient information and streamline clinical workflows.

The solution

This collaborative project involved outsourcing scan-on-demand services while utilising the Trust's in-house scanning for day-forward operations. Implementing MediViewer centralised patient information and integrated various clinical feeds. In March 2022, Northampton General Hospital launched MediViewer across its neurology and rehab services. Extensive training was provided to all clinicians — including consultants, clinical nurse specialists, registrars, nurse consultants, physiotherapists, pharmacists, and junior doctors — through one-to-one and role-specific group sessions. The project also migrated thousands of records from the Trust's legacy EDMS and enriched the system with clinic letters and discharge summaries. MediViewer’s intuitive design, optical character recognition (OCR), and SmartIndexing technology enable clinicians to swiftly locate essential documentation. Continuous integrations further enhance system capabilities and user experience.

Trust benefits

●      Trained all clinicians across neurology and rehab services, ensuring comprehensive adoption.

●      Migrated thousands of records from legacy systems and enriched the user experience with additional clinic letters and discharge summaries.

●      Leveraged OCR and SmartIndexing technology for rapid, accurate access to critical patient information.

"Our ambition is to be the leading Digital Hospital Group in England. Achieving that would mean clinicians are given excellent tools that provide more time to care, patients are in control of their treatment, managers have instant information to drive decision-making and all staff have access to amazing training and support. Starting to scan paper records at Northampton General is something we’ve been looking forward to as it is a significant milestone on our journey"

- Andy Callow, former group chief digital information officer, University Hospitals Northamptonshire NHS Group