Case Study
Gloucestershire Royal Hospital
This case study relates to a legacy version of Crescendo’s Digital Dictation platform. Newly released DigiWeb is a cloud-based, browser-accessible solution with additional functionality including Fast Transcription, Speech Recognition, and an AI Assistant.
Key Results
- Faster document turnaround, improving clinical workflow efficiency.
- Reduced administrative workload, giving clinicians more time for patient care.
- Improved accuracy and clarity of clinical documentation.
- Secure and reliable handling of sensitive patient information.
Visual Case Study.
Written Case Study.
The Crescendo Hospital Digital Dictation software is currently in use with almost 100 users in the ENT, OMF, Orthodontics and Histology departments at Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and is about to be rolled out across the entire Trust. The departments span both the Gloucestershire Royal and Chelteham General hospitals. The original objective was to streamline working practices and improve the working life of the secretaries. Prior to this implementation the secretaries had identified the need for more typing support, but financial constraints conflicted with the recruitment if more staff.
The implementation of the Crescendo Hospital Digital Dictation software has provided benefits in a number of ways:
Performance.
The system has enabled the department to monitor and manage performance on a daily basis. They have been able to accurately identify the volume of clinics, the speed of typing and prioritising of work. It has enabled them to manage staff more effectively and to accurately measure the volume of typing taking place, since the Crescendo system provides both the tools and techniques to support active performance and monitoring.
Efficiency.
The clinicians have been able to maximise the use of their time. They can access the system anywhere – including theatre where they can utilise the time between operations and dictate reports and review letters etc.
The co-ordinator had found it both possible and easy to move work between the Cheltenham and Gloucester sites according to volume and demand. Where secretarial staff have needed to be replaced, through retirement etc, it has been possible to re-organise the work. Lower salary band audio typists have been taken on and secretaries have been able to concentrate on other duties for two consultants rather than just one -Thus providing savings in costs. Typing backlogs have been reduced from 6-7 weeks down to a matter of days at most.
Annette Achaiah, General Manager for Head and Neck comments:
“The system is extremely user friendly and both clinicians and administrative staff adapted to its use with no problems at all. Following a short and simple training exercise, staff were able to put their skills to use immediately and for the first time ever, we were able to complete the work in real-time-the clinics were dictated, typed and letters signed and posted the same working day.
The system’s flexibility enabled us to be more creative in our approach to service redesign and subsequent restructuring of administrative processes – this facilitated significant savings and greater efficiency throughout the directorates.”
Steve Edwards, Head of IT Development Services recounts the set-up and support process:
“Crescendo has proven to be not only easy to deploy but robust and resilient in operation, we have had no significant issues either during deployment or operation of what has rapidly become a critical system in improving the delivery of patient care- eliminating significant communication delays compare to the previous process.
A difference in approach pre and post-sale is often noticeable in vendors, that has not been the case with Crescendo as the technical support and advice from the company has been excellent throughout the process. I doubt our help desk staff know what Crescendo is, I could only wish all software applications in the trust were this straightforward to support.”
How are Gloucester Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust getting on with their Hospital Digital Dictation?
Now with almost 1,000 users across the Trust, Gloucestershire are still using Crescendo site wide with great results!