The Importance of Digital Document Management in Healthcare

Digital transformation has become an integral part of many industries, and healthcare is no exception. The Digital Transformation in Healthcare market value is expected to increase to $253.6 billion by 2033, highlighting the growing adopting of new digital technologies in the industry.

Whether it’s consent forms, prescriptions, patient records, or clinical documents, it’s fair to say that healthcare professionals rely heavily on paper-based processes. How that paperwork is managed can impact all areas of the healthcare sector from the patient experience and care to employee capacity and satisfaction. Digital documents can help improve document management across the healthcare sector. This is particularly true for the NHS, who have embarked on a digital transformation journey in recent years.

In this blog, we’ll be discussing the importance of digital document management in healthcare and how electronic signatures can benefit the healthcare sector.

Why Is Digital Document Management Important for the Healthcare Sector?

Poor document management can have a knock-on effect on patients and employees alike. Digital documents can support the healthcare sector on its mission to provide the best possible patient care. Let’s take a closer look at how digital documents can help the healthcare industry, whether that’s the NHS or the private sector.

Improve Patient Experience

Electronic signatures revolutionise healthcare by simplifying processes for both medical professionals and patients. Imagine the convenience of managing everything from fit notes to prescriptions digitally. Digital prescriptions, for instance, empower GPs to transmit prescriptions directly to pharmacies, eliminating the patient’s role as courier. This is just one example of how digital documents enhance the patient experience. Well-organised digital records empower healthcare professionals and administrators to deliver smoother, more efficient care across the spectrum, from GP surgeries to hospitals. By reducing administrative burdens, electronic signatures free up valuable time, allowing healthcare professionals to focus on what matters most: providing exceptional patient care.

Free up Time to Spend With Patients

Healthcare professionals dedicate their lives to patient care, yet administrative burdens, particularly paperwork, often consume valuable time. While essential, this administrative overhead detracts from direct patient interaction. E-signatures and digital document management offer a powerful solution, streamlining workflows and freeing up healthcare professionals to focus on what matters most: delivering exceptional patient care. No one enters the healthcare field to spend countless hours on paperwork. By embracing eSignatures and digital documents, GP surgeries, hospitals, and other healthcare providers can significantly reduce administrative time, increase efficiency and productivity, and ultimately, improve the quality of patient care. Implementing eSignatures for healthcare also reduces errors associated with manual paperwork processing and enhances data security and compliance.

Ensure Patient Data Is Centralised

Digital documents offer a transformative approach to data organisation, eliminating the inefficiencies of scanning and physical filing. A fully digital system centralises patient data, creating a single, easily accessible repository. This centralised approach ensures healthcare professionals have immediate access to comprehensive patient records, promoting consistency and standardisation across the healthcare spectrum

Reduce Costs on Paper

In 2021/2022, around £136.1 billion went into funding the NHS. It’s thought that going digital could help to save the NHS a significant amount of money. It’s estimated that digital healthcare processes could save as much as £7.5 billion. Switching from paper to digital documents could also help to reduce spending. Whilst each trust spends a different amount on MFD (Multi-functional devices i.e. printers/ scanners) and printing, paper processes generally cost the NHS hundreds of thousands of pounds each year. In 2018, The Mid Yorkshire NHS Trust spent £179,496 on paper alone; this cost could be all but eliminated if the Trust became fully digitalised with the help of digital signatures and digital documents.

Improved Audit Trial and Staff Efficiency

Beyond the measurable advantages, digital transformation in healthcare offers significant qualitative improvements. Electronic signatures provide a robust audit trail, meticulously recording every action. This enhanced transparency, accountability, and traceability strengthens regulatory compliance, simplifies audits, and minimises the risk of errors or malpractice. Implementing eSignatures for healthcare also fosters seamless collaboration and communication among healthcare professionals.

Staff can instantly access and review digital healthcare documents, reducing delays and ensuring continuity of care, regardless of staff absences or rotations. This streamlined workflow and increased efficiency translate directly to improved patient care and satisfaction. E-signature solutions for healthcare also contribute to better data security and integrity.

Prepare for a Digital Future

The vision of a paperless NHS has long been a goal. In 2023, the focus shifted towards a hybrid approach, recognising that integrating paper and digital records can optimise patient care. As healthcare delivery increasingly moves online, providers must adapt, balancing the drive for digitalisation with accessibility considerations. Reliance on outdated paper processes hinders progress, potentially creating disparities in digital maturity and fragmented patient records across NHS Trusts and GP surgeries. With advancements like the NHS App and Electronic Patient Records (EPR), eSignatures for healthcare and digital healthcare documents will play a crucial role in supporting wider healthcare digitalisation initiatives. Implementing eSignature solutions for healthcare is essential for streamlining workflows, improving data security, and ensuring seamless access to patient information. Embracing electronic signatures in healthcare also facilitates better collaboration and communication among healthcare professionals, ultimately leading to improved patient outcomes.

What Healthcare Documents Can Be Electronically Signed?

Let’s take a look at some of the documents that could be digitised with electronic signatures:

Digital Prescriptions

Launched in 2013, the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) is now used in 93% of England’s GP practices and over 67% of prescriptions are now delivered via EPS. GPs can electronically sign prescriptions and forward them to the pharmacy in just a few clicks. This not only saves time for GP’s and patients alike but also saved the NHS £136 million between 2013 to 2016 alone.

After successfully implementing electronic signatures across GP services, digital prescribing is now being rolled out across the entire NHS, including hospitals, bringing these time and money-saving benefits to NHS trusts and helping the organisation to reach its goal of going paperless by 2024.

E-Sign Consent Forms

The NHS website states that consent to treat means “a person must give permission before they receive any type of medical treatment, test or examination.” Consent forms are also commonly used in medical research and clinical trials.

In 2017, the HRA and MHRA released a joint statement, confirming that electronic signatures could be used to seek, confirm and document consent for clinical trials saying “The use of electronic signatures and authorisations is becoming increasingly common. We’ve had queries about their validity in protocols and other documents and we’d like to clarify that we accept them as an alternative to ink signatures (hra.nhs.uk).”

Fit Notes

If you’re sick and off work for more than 7 days (during which you can self-certify), you’ll likely be required to provide your employer with a ‘fit note’ from a doctor or Allied Health Professional. The fit note confirms that you’re ‘not fit for work’ and can be used to claim Statutory Sick Pay (SSP).

Whilst some healthcare professionals still used pen and paper to write out physical sick notes for patients, they can now be electronically generated thanks to digital signatures and digital documents. GPs and Allied Health Professionals can now create a fit note, or ‘MED 3’ as it’s also known, and electronically sign the document without having to print it out first.

E-Sign PGDs

PGDs or Patient Group Directions are “a written instruction for the sale, supply and/or administration of medicines to groups of patients who may not be individually identified before presentation for treatment (sps.nhs.uk)”. It basically allows a specified healthcare professional/s to administer medicine without a prescription or instruction from the prescriber (for example, walk-in centres for vaccinations).

The MHRA confirmed that electronic signatures can be used to sign and authorise PGDs. They do require an advanced electronic signature, however, meaning it must follow a specific set of criteria in order to be valid.

Why Choose E-Sign?

Here at E-Sign, we understand that you have a choice of digital signature provider. Here’s why we think your healthcare organisation should choose us:

Approved for Use on the PSN

E-Sign is the only electronic signature approved for use on the PSN, the Public Service Network. That means that E-Sign meets the strict regulatory requirements and the highest security standards of the public sector.

A Trusted Provider by the NHS

E-Sign is trusted by the NHS and healthcare providers worldwide for a multitude of applications, from multisite practices to COVID-19 testing and vaccination rollout sites. All of which have one specific focus, improving the patient experience and driving greater efficiency.

Highly Secure E-Signature

Our electronic signatures are highly secure and fully verifiable. When you sign with E-Sign, you’ll have a digital certificate and a full audit trail supporting your transactions. Our document management platform is also secured via 256bit SSL encryption, so you know that your data is in secure hands.

User-Friendly Digital Platform

We understand that your digital documents need to be user-friendly for both healthcare professionals and patients alike. With drag and drop features, our digital documents are easy to create. They’re also easy for patients to fill in and sign.

Extra Verification Tools

We understand that health data can be highly sensitive. E-Sign has a range of verification tools to protect your digital documents. Enable integrated ID verification with our ID checker, SMS authentication or password protection.

Secure Electronic Seals

An organisation may apply an electronic seal on a contract before sending it out for signature in order to certify the integrity and origin of documents. With E-Sign, your healthcare organisation can add an electronic seal to your documents before you send them out for signing.

E-Sign is a leading provider of digital transaction management solutions, supplying professional services including Electronic Signatures, Web Forms, ID Checker, Verification Tools, Personalised Emails, API and Payment Processing to businesses of all sizes across the UK.

To find out more about our E-Sign solutions and how they could transform your business, get in touch with us today.