Case Study - Shenley Green Surgery

A doctor's surgery in Shenley Green, Birmingham, has almost 6,000 patients and is home to four doctors, two nurses, a counsellor and reception staff, as well as providing facilities for student training.

Emptying their pockets

Following a major re-development of the local area, the surgery moved to new premises in September 2003 and took the opportunity to review it's filing system.

Previously, Lloyd George pockets were employed for holding patient notes but, inevitably, the pockets became too full and began to split.  Not only did this look untidy but also resulted in the pockets being misfiled in the previously installed front opening cabinets, thus wasting time in searching for files.

Cave Tab prescribes alternative treatment

After researching alternative methods of indexing, it was decided that Cave Tab had the best solution to the problem.  Patient notes were transfered into colour-coded files - the brightly coloured labels have the benefit of being highly visible and lead to complete accuracy.  If a file is put in the wrong place, the run of colour is broken.  Additionally, Cave Tab have provided the surgery with software to produce their own labels, so for every new record created, a file index label is automatically produced, which means the filing system is always up to date.

"Medical staff at the surgery are extremely impressed" - Vicki Chambers, Practice Manager, Shenley Green Surgery

To house it's newly created files, the surgery opted for the Cave Tab Twinfile rotating storage unit - a double-sided unit, Twinfile offers the most efficient use of space and enables both front and rear access to the files.  staff also have the added bonus of being able to close the storage unit at night, which improves security and helps prevent dust damage.

A dedicated team from Cave Tab worked on site to complete the system conversion, transferring notes from the old system to the new without causing disruption to the day operation of the surgery.

Speaking of the new document management system, Vicki Chambers, Practice Manager at Shenley Green Surgery said "Reception and medical staff at the surgery are extremely impressed with the results of our implementation of the Cave Tab system.  The modern design of the cabinets fits in well with our new building.  Misfiling problems have been solved and file retrieval times have been dramatically reduced."