Sciensus and Portsmouth cut cancer prescription turnaround with e-signature pilot
Sciensus and Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust have completed a year-long project to introduce a fully digital signature process for cancer treatment prescriptions, cutting a process that used to take up to a day and a half down to a few minutes of manual handling.
Raghu Mamullapally, Lead Pharmacist for Homecare Services at the Trust, worked with Sciensus to expand electronic prescribing and digital signatures for homecare patients, including those receiving Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapy (SACT).
What the old process looked like
Every SACT prescription used to go through six manual steps: print it, stamp and sign it, scan it, send it to the Homecare team, print it again, handwrite additional information onto it, then scan it back. Each step depended on staff being free to action it, print queues and access to scanning equipment.
A single prescription could take anywhere from several hours to over a day to complete.
What’s changed
The prescription is now generated, signed electronically and sent straight to the Homecare team’s e-Sign queue in one step. That removes the printing, physical signing, scanning, reprinting and handwriting stages entirely.
Based on early estimates from the team, this cuts active processing time per prescription from around 15 to 20 minutes of manual handling down to a few minutes, and removes most of the turnaround delay, since the document now reaches the Homecare team automatically rather than waiting on manual handling at each end.
Raghu estimates that adds up to around 1 to 1.5 days saved per prescription once handling delays are accounted for.
Where it’s live
All SACT homecare patients from Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust on service with Sciensus are now being processed through this method. Rollout is still in its early stages, with more patients expected to move onto the new process over time.
A eureka moment for the team
Raghu said: “I’m delighted to share a real eureka moment for our team: we’ve completed a first for Portsmouth – a fully digital e-signature process for SACT prescriptions, in partnership using our own Homecare app in conjunction with clinical governance approved eSign workflows from Sciensus.
It’s a fantastic milestone, and it means our SACT process is now leaner and more efficient than ever. By removing manual interventions altogether, we’ve tripled the efficiency of the process, and I couldn’t be prouder of what the team has achieved.”
Why it matters
This is an important step forward in relation to capacity and efficiency for the Homecare team. There’s no direct change to an individual patient’s treatment timeline from this alone, but less administrative burden on the Homecare team frees up capacity, and the team hopes that supports more patients moving onto homecare treatment over time.
This milestone would not have been possible without the collaboration between teams at Sciensus and Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust, and we’d like to thank everyone involved.
