A very important document that brings correspondence from the Ashford and St. Peter’s Hospitals NHS Trust right up-to-date in the digital age was signed in traditional style on Monday (26-02-07) when the Trust entered into a three-year contract for a clinical correspondence digital transcription service.

Delays in the traditional methods of typing clinical correspondence led the Trust to begin a trial of a digital transcription service in November 2005.  The success of that trial led to the gradual introduction of outsourcing the transcription of clinical letters by all departments within the Trust.

In April 2006, the Trust commenced the tendering process required by the EU for all contracts in excess of £100,000.  A small project team was set up to work through the tendering process for the outsourcing of clinical correspondence and this group set four very strict criteria which were non-negotiable by any potential supplier. 

Said Director of Performance, Information and Facilities Ian Mackenzie: “The first two criteria were total confidentiality and anonymity of patient’s details, and the further criteria were data security and accuracy.  Initial interest was shown by 16 companies worldwide, 10 responded to the preliminary questionnaire and 6 were then short-listed and submitted formal offers.”

The project team made site visits to four other NHS Trusts and contacted two other organisations using the transcription services of the short-listed candidates.  The team then scored both the formal offers and the site visits against the four main non-negotiable issues and other secondary criteria: ease of use of equipment, technical and service back-up, functionality and price.

Said Ian: “The method for sending and receiving back the clinical correspondence is that the clinician dictates into a digital recorder, using only the patient’s hospital number and date of birth.  The recording is sent electronically via a secure and encrypted internet connection to India where it is transcribed.  It then comes back into the Trust via the same secure route attached to an email and the clinician’s secretary then merges the patient’s details into the document.  The date of birth and hospital number must match for the details to merge into the correspondence, once it has passed through the Trust’s Firewall, hence we ensure the total confidentiality and anonymity of all our patients.  The actual file and details of the patient’s name, address and GP etc never leave the Trust.”

The success of the service in the Medicine Directorate was recognised by the Turnaround Team and became part of the Trust’s Plan to bring the financial deficit under control.  Over 1.5 million lines of dictation were transcribed in 2006, which equates, on an average of 20 lines per letter, to 75,000 letters.  The service has been funded by non-replacement of secretaries when they leave and is currently being used by approximately 300 clinicians in all specialties throughout the Trust. 

Turnaround time from a patient being seen in clinic to a letter being sent to the GP is between 24 – 48 hours and in the case of Oncology, where speed is of the essence, within 24 hours.  In a recent exercise conducted within the Trust, the accuracy of this service in terms of medical terminology, medication and grammar was 97% and the company are working towards increasing this to 99% overall.

The tendering process was completed in December 2006 and the Trust is delighted to announce that the contract for the outsourcing of clinical correspondence transcription has been awarded to Omnimedical Limited.  Omnimedical Ltd is aUK based company with an off-shore transcription centre based in New Delhi, India. Omnimedical Ltd are one of the fewUK transcription companies to have their own off-shore offices; having direct liaison with the off-shore centre has been a major factor in the success of this project.