UXBRIDGE, U.K., Nov. 21, 2016 – More than 75,000 patients of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust are now able to receive their appointment notifications and reminders via email rather than traditional post, as part of a new partnership with Xerox.
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust sends out more than 1.5 million pieces of post a year related to patient appointments. The project aims to cut this number dramatically by giving patients greater choice in how the Trust communicates with them. It will also save the Trust an expected £1million over four years on postage costs.
Xerox is helping the Trust to transition patients to email-based communication, enabling them to receive appointment details more quickly and conveniently. For each appointment Xerox software checks if a patient has consented to email based communication and then automatically sends out an email if the patient has opted in, if not a letter is sent.
The Trust has started to use self-check in kiosks across its clinics to secure patients’ consent to move away from paper-based communications. This will help the Trust streamline its patient communications operation, and support the UK Government’s vision for a digital NHS by 2020.
For those patients still choosing to receive postal appointment details, the mailing process has also been streamlined through the implementation of Xerox technology. Using its secure shared delivery centres, Xerox has created a centralised, digital resource for postal mail management to ensure that all patients receive correspondence without delay or error. By identifying incorrect or incomplete mailing addresses before letters are posted, Mailmark barcode technology tracks letters to ensure patients receive appointment details in time.
“This is a very exciting development for the Trust and more importantly our patients – many of whom have expressed a desire to receive correspondence electronically in the past,” said Kevin Jarrold, chief information officer, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. “In February we began recording patients who told us they wanted to be contacted electronically using our self-check in kiosks which are widely available at clinics across our hospital sites. More recently, we have emailed patients asking for permission to send all future correspondence to them electronically.
“We are already seeing the positive impact this programme is having on patient experience, making it more effective and personal from the onset. We’re looking forward to building on this success and making electronic appointment correspondence available to more patients over the next few months.”
Andrew Morrison, U.K. managing director, Xerox said: “Through our work with Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust we aim to strike a balance between streamlining the paper process through automation, and helping the Trust transition to a digital future. The ultimate aim is to find the most effective way for the Trust to communicate with its patients and in doing so help to reduce the number of missed appointments.”
It is estimated that by the end of the year, 150,000 Trust patients will have signed-up to receive appointment correspondence and alerts electronically.
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About Xerox
Xerox is helping change the way the world works. By applying our expertise in imaging, business process, analytics, automation and user-centric insights, we engineer the flow of work to provide greater productivity, efficiency and personalisation. Our employees create meaningful innovations and provide business process services, printing equipment, software and solutions that make a real difference for our clients and their customers in 180 countries. On January 29, 2016, Xerox announced its plans to separate into two independent, publicly traded companies – Xerox Corporation, which will be comprised of the company’s Document Technology and Document Outsourcing businesses, and Conduent Incorporated, a business process services company. The company is on track to complete the separation by the end of 2016. Learn more at www.xerox.com.
Xerox Media Contact:
Sonia Panchal, Xerox
+44 (0)1895 842877
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust Media Contact:
Andrea Mason, media manager
020 3312 1331
andrea.mason@imperial.nhs.uk
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