Cork University case study: Medical records scanning & off site records management

Industry:

Healthcare

Challenge:

Introduce best practice in records management

Solution:

Fully-managed digitisation service including document uplift, medical records scanning, hosting of digital files and ongoing off-site records management

Value:

• Releasing hospital staff so they can spend more time with patients
• Faster and more secure access to patient records with 99% next-day service
• Marked improvement in the way information is managed

Centre of excellence

Cork University Hospital (CUH) is the largest university teaching hospital in Ireland and the only Level 1 Trauma centre in the country, with a presence of over 40 different medical and surgical specialties on campus.

Serving a total population of 1.1 million, CUH has over 3,200 staff and 800 beds, shortly rising to 1,000 on completion of the transfer of additional services to the CUH campus.

The hospital annually manages around 209,000 out-patient visits, 45,000 inpatient discharges and 80,000 day cases. In addition, it is the primary teaching hospital for the Faculty of Health and Science in University College Cork.

Campus growth added complexity

Fast, accurate retrieval of medical files are critical to the operational efficiency of the hospital. However, storage space was coming under pressure.

Also, with patient records multiplying at a rapid rate, handling files on site was getting ever more complex. Iron Mountain® partnered with CUH to radically change the way information was managed by applying medical record scanning and off site records management

“We simply became overrun with records as the hospital grew in size,” said Siobhan Lynch, Medical Records Manager at CUH. “We found that we were receiving more calls to retrieve documents. A combination of increased work flow and stretched resources persuaded us to start working with Iron Mountain.”