PCT Case Study - Ealing, Hammersmith & Hounslow
 

PCTI were approached by Ealing, Hammersmith and Hounslow Health Authority after it had been decided that a ‘pilot’ project to implement scanning capabilities for 30 of its practices was to be undertaken. The first stage of this ‘pilot’ project was to establish a working committee of personnel to be involved. This team would be responsible for steering the project to completion. Once chosen, the final committee included practice staff, general practitioners and members of the PCT IT department. Following this initial work, a project plan was established. The first phase of this involved the reviewing of the different suppliers and document management products available to General Practice.		Summary "Thanks to strong support and a flexible working methodology, the decision taken by PCT to utilise PCTI Solutions as the ‘pilot provider’ has been acknowledged by all involved as a complete success. Further to this, post ‘pilot’ installations continue to be performed with the intention of providing all practices with document management technology through which they can fully manage the ever growing throughput of paper that every practice faces on a day-to-day basis."
Key requirements highlighted by the working team were the necessity to select a solution provided by a single supplier. This was irrespective of the differing clinical systems (in this instance EMIS LV, EMIS GV and INPS Vision) utilised by the practices involved in the project. In addition, the chosen single supplier had to be fully conversant with the differing clinical applications. Also, the product chosen had to be both an integrated and user-friendly solution. Following these stipulations, a short list of appropriate suppliers was collated. Candidates were then asked to attend an initial meeting to discuss both software and service provision capabilities, along with company background. Having assessed the information provided by the various suppliers an ‘invitation to demonstrate’ was issued to a short list of preferred products at both practice and PCT level. Following demonstrations, discussions surrounding rollout logistics and pilot project pricing agreement, PCTI was awarded the contract to install document management software for the 30 pilot sites involved in the project. To ensure that the minimal disruption was incurred by the practices involved, Installations and Training were performed over a period of three months by mutual agreement with each individual practice. Following this, feedback from all sites involved has been very positive. Thanks to strong support and a flexible working methodology, the decision taken by PCT to utilise PCTI Solutions as the ‘pilot provider’ has been acknowledged by all involved as a complete success. Further to this, post ‘pilot’ installations continue to be performed with the intention of providing all practices with document management technology through which they can fully manage the ever growing throughput of paper that every practice faces on a day-to-day basis.