Time Required To Access Electronic Medical Records and the Potential Financial Impact in a Large District General Hospital in England

Abstract

Despite the advances in IT systems, computers in hospitals found to be anecdotally slow and inefficient. There is therefore a direct impact on the efficiency of delivering healthcare such as delaying outpatient consultations, interfering with operation theatre flow, and overall disturbing the diagnostic and the therapeutic care provided to patients. The impact of this inefficiency leads to unacceptable time and financial waste within the NHS sector. In a prospective study, we examine the efficiency of computer terminals in a large district general hospital in United Kingdom by assessing the time required to access electronic medical records (EMR), and estimate the possible financial implications of the time wasted. We also conducted a qualitative survey of staff accessing computer terminals and EMR frequency and experience. One hundred eight computers were recruited in this study in the department of Trauma & Orthopaedics in our institute.  The average time taken for computers to boot up from powered off, and standby to desktop screen in minutes were 4:03 (SD± 2:52), and 2:22 (SD± 1:57) respectively, and that from powered off to accessing x-rays was 5:06 minutes (SD± 3:25). The average daily wasted time (DWT) per worker in our department was 33:22 minutes (SD± 22:20) making the estimated annual money wasted in our department of £543K and that of our hospital and entire NHS of £6 million, and £1.1 billion respectively. The impact of slow computers in the NHS renders this era of paperless NHS as inefficient in regards to time and finance. Increment in both hardware and software optimisation with improved network bandwidth is imperative to ensure a more efficient future for the NHS.