Electronic records' 1.4 m pounds annual saving.

The St. Helens & Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust says it has reached a significant milestone in a major project via which it aims to cease completely using paper-based patient records and other patient-related information such as discharge summaries and X-ray results by converting all such documentation to online electronic form. With the purchase of three Kodak high-speed document scanners, which digitise the files, and a tailored version of C Cube Solutions' electronic document management software (EDMS), all 27 hospital departments at the Trust's two main acute hospitals have now "gone live" with the radical new system for medical records, and, as HEJ editor Jonathan Baillie reports, preparations are in hand to convert other important patient documentation into electronic form.