General5.12.2012

Western Cape Forensic Pathology Service sees improved efficiency with OpenText ECM

The Western Cape Government, Department of Health – Forensic Pathology Service (FPS) is using an enterprise content management (ECM) solution, implemented by IT solution provider, Datacentrix, to successfully save time and money while improving service delivery.

The department has been working with Datacentrix since 2009, when it implemented the OpenText ECM Livelink solution. Says Trish Dicks, national strategy manager: ECM public sector at Datacentrix: “The system went fully live across all FPS facilities in April 2010 and, since this time, has become increasingly advantageous to the department.”

Omar Galant from the Department of Forensic Medicine explains: “The department has to deal with thousands of photographs per month, which previously needed to be printed out and send to the relevant doctors. In order to do this, the digital images were saved onto desktops, then copied and pasted into Word documents to be printed and finally filed.”

Of the approximately 250 cases dealt with per month, each has around seven photos, with only two or three fitting on to a page. This meant that for every case, three pages of images needed to be printed in colour, resulting in a monthly expense to cover the cost of the paper as well as the colour ink cartridges.

“Now, we can just send the doctors a link to the specific photos that they need. This process is saving time, money and physical labour,” says Galant.

Now, the images are loaded directly into OpenText ECM Livelink and links to the content are sent to the forensic officers working on the cases, making viewing them much more efficient.

“Another added advantage is that OpenText ECM is accessible via 3G, so doctors are able to view photos on demand, making this process less time consuming, more convenient and easily accessible,” Galant adds. “OpenText ECM continues to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the FPS department, thus driving improved service delivery.”

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