Garden Clinic

“Registration times have noticeably been reduced and we can process patients a lot quicker than prior to using Matchcode Data Capture. In addition, we are confident the address records are complete and accurate to PAF standard so we can be sure any correspondence we do send to our patients gets there safely.”

Information System Manager at the Garden Clinic, Ann Boschen

Background

The Garden Clinic is an NHS health service based in Berkshire that runs a sexual health clinic at its head office at Upton Hospital in Slough, as well as satellite clinics in Bracknell and Maidenhead, all providing consultation and treatment for individuals living or working within the Berkshire area. The Garden Clinic provides a broad range of sexual health services including family planning, screening and testing, general sexual health information and advice, GU medicine and contraception.

Registering patient details

Every month, over 3,500 patients register and visit one of the Garden Clinic’s outlets. All patients are asked to complete paper forms with their name, address and contact details which are then entered into preView, a clinic and patient management system from healthcare software provider CliniSys.

“The clinics are always very busy and registering each patient’s details at the reception can slow up the process,” explains Information System Manager at the Garden Clinic, Ann Boschen. “With staff required to type in a full postal address as well as relying on the data on the registration forms to be correct, inaccuracies would creep in as well.”

The solution

The Garden Clinic recognised the need for a data capture and address validation system that would speed up the data entry process whilst ensuring that all addresses entered into preView were valid. “Capscan’s Matchcode Data Capture software was recommended to us by CliniSys, who recognised that it could be seamlessly integrated with the patient records manager in the preView system,” says Boschen. The Garden Clinic subsequently purchased Matchcode Data Capture for four users in its three clinics and the satellite clinic.

Matchcode Data Capture enables the Garden Clinic to enter either a postcode or partial address (where the postcode is unknown) and return the full correct address. In this way a complete address can be captured with the minimum number of keystrokes. Matchcode Data Capture ensures that The Garden Clinic’s database is only populated with accurate and up-to-date address and names information. It does this by comparing records to the 27 million addresses in Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File (PAF).

A more efficient registration process

Boschen explains the new process, “The Garden Clinic’s registration forms were modified so that the patient only needed to fill in their postcode and residence number or name. Staff simply enter this information into preView and Matchcode Data Capture immediately recognises the full, valid address and it is stored into the patient records manager.”

The future

Information captured from paper forms is critical to The Garden Clinic as it plans to undergo a paperless office conversion. “Eventually we aim to reduce our paper use significantly in order to lower related costs. Using Matchcode Data Capture ensures that we can use the address data already captured and verified as part of the new system.”

The Garden Clinic has also purchased additional datasets from Capscan, specifically Grid References, Health Authorities, Public Health Goals, Primary Care Trusts and Primary Care Groups. Matchcode Data Capture enables these datasets to be appended or cross-referenced with the records to provide the Garden Clinic with additional information when referring patients. “We will be using the additional datasets to enhance the service we provide and support our future plans.”