The Challenge of Managing four Million Health records

RFID was the solution to the ever-growing problem

Belfast Health and Social Care Trust is the largest integrated health and social care trust in the United Kingdom, providing health services to 340,000 citizens in the Greater Belfast area. The Trust files, stores, retrieves and manages almost 4,000,000 health records across six record libraries and with external storage providers. During 2015 the Trust commissioned a Health Records Digitisation Strategy for its acute sites. This provided a clear understanding of the Trust’s management, storage and use of patient health information together with a roadmap to achieve its objective to become paper-lite by 2020. The tracking and management of medical records was identified as an area in which investment in technology would drive a number of benefits.

”The main goal of any digital transformation: to find and realize the most efficient solution for the individual requirements of the user. Hardware such as the latest generation of IoT-capable UHF RFID readers from Kathrein and the scalable software IoT suite Crosstalk form the innovative basis for custom-fit, user specific technology solutions.“
Franz Angerer, Business Development Manager, Kathrein Solutions

The process became unsustainable with an ongoing need to add more staff to enable timely management of record requests. Denise worked with Paul Duffy, the Trust’s Co-Director of ICT to help her identify new methods of digital delivery. With increasing funding pressures and limited resources available to the Trust it had identified the need to utilise innovative technology to drive transformation within the records management  processes. Paul and Denise recognised that RFID technology could enable a more timely and efficient approach to records management, eliminating the need to keep expanding the records management team. Under the Health Records Digitisation Strategy the Trust had already invested in several RFID proof of concept solutions and that led them to Kinsetsu who had initially helped them drive their digital transformation plan with a single “Internet of Things” (IoT) management platform.

Monitoring and managing all IoT projects on one platform
Kinsetsu is a specialist IoT and digital services company and is the UK & Ireland partner of Kathrein – a global leader in IoT. The Trust had initially engaged Kinsetsu to help them drive more value from their prior IoT investments. Kinsetsu was able to demonstrate an integrated approach to the Trust’s siloed IoT projects using Kathrein’s latest generation ARU 3500 IoT Gateway in combination with the Kathrein CrossTalk Software solution to provide a digital bridge; this helped the Trust avoid IoT point solutions and data silos by delivering a single consolidated middware layer. With a distributed architecture and proven scalability CrossTalk has enabled the Trust to monitor and manage all of its IoT projects, regardless of the device technology chosen. Management is proactive, seamless and carried out from a single platform, providing location accuracy, integrating physical with digital and people with their relevant data to enable informed decision making.

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Article (September 2017 | RFID im Blick | en)