An opportunity for digital transformation in healthcare

‘If it’s not broken, don’t fix it’ is a phrase that might come to mind when we think about healthcare system processes. It can be difficult to replace manual operations that have been working for decades without thinking twice about updating them. However, millions of pounds and hundreds of hours are wasted annually on paperwork and its processes within the National Health Service (NHS). This is frustrating for both patients and healthcare workers alike, as well as creating unnecessary risk—that’s where digital transformation comes in. 

An article published by The Kings Court highlighted the importance of high-quality administrative processes within the NHS, stating that investment and focus on these areas has the potential to improve patient experience, reduce inequalities, promote better care – and contribute to a better working environment for staff. By using technology to its advantage, the NHS has the potential to deliver a better health system experience for patients and staff through digitising contracts, forms and paperwork and moving towards a fully electronic health record system. In this blog we will explore 3 reasons why digital transformation in healthcare is necessary - and with the most stringent UK, EU and global security standards, DocuSign can help get you started. 

1. Empower healthcare professionals

With increased cut backs and increasingly tight department budgets, public sector workers are continuously working at bandwidth. Slow, time-consuming, administrative tasks can often take up a lot of staff time, taking away from the energy needed to perform in their own area of expertise. 

Digitising healthcare is a clear cut way to combat this and introducing DocuSign eSignature could be the first step in introducing digital technology in healthcare. Not only is eSignature more efficient and seamless than regular pen and paper,  it also mitigates risk and gives both staff and patients peace of mind and accountability with built-in audit trails that stand up in court along with the strongest data encryption technologies commercially available. DocuSign eSignature also saves an average of £30 per agreement by reducing hard costs, eliminating errors and improving employee productivity. 

The DocuSign Agreement Cloud also has over 350 pre-built integrations, meaning that applications like MS Office, Oracle, Workday and G Suite that are already commonly used health apps within the NHS, can work seamlessly with DocuSign. Healthcare workers need smoother operational systems empowering them to regain control of their profession and focus on patient care.

“The implementation of DocuSign eSignature was smooth, and the support received was second to none. Sending email attachments is now a thing of the past as DocuSign eSignature has made remote signing so much easier and the team more efficient.”

Irfaan Ibne, Head of Resourcing, East London NHS Foundation Trust

2. Improve Patient experience 

In a report published by the House of Commons Library entitled ‘NHS Key Statistics: England, June 2022’ it uncovered that over the course of a year there are typically around 16 million attendances at major hospital A&E and 9 million at minor units. Every person that passes through the NHS doors faces a myriad of administrative processes and burdens. Ultimately, the quality and efficiency of these necessary systems play a critical role in the overall patient experience.

For example, digital health tools such as forms with simple interfaces, clear instructions, intelligent machine learning and one-click consent to standard terms functionality could be shared and completed by patients on their phone at the touch of a button using DocuSign Guided Forms.

DocuSign eWitness can also allow you to avoid the cost, errors and time associated with manual witnessing with its seamless and secure structure, giving accurate and secure real time results. Digital experiences are commonplace in many sectors and the healthcare industry should be no different. Patients deserve a convenient, quick and efficient solution to current slow and painful processes that significantly impact patient outcomes.

“Everything is going very well following the training, using DocuSign has greatly improved and streamlined our internal processes.”

Tracey Mare, Kings College Hospital

3. Contribute to a more sustainable planet

Embracing digital practices in the healthcare system contributes to improved employee and patient experience but also saves paper and positively impacts the planet. Automating healthcare administrative systems will significantly impact the environment. In fact, since 2003, DocuSign eSignature has saved over 55 billion sheets of paper and 2 billion kgs of CO2.

The time is now to work on the digitisation of healthcare. DocuSign products can fast track the health care system's journey to digital first operations allowing you to manage documents end-to-end throughout the agreement lifecycle from signature to storage. 

Introducing DocuSign Web Forms

Web Forms is a new offering in DocuSign eSignature that allows organisations to capture data from fillable forms and dynamically populate content into agreements for signature. It’s a no-code solution that can be implemented quickly, empowering form creators to easily build and maintain their forms without relying on internal IT resources. 

The interactive UI allows users to quickly employ conditional logic functionality that changes form fields to display only relevant content based on customer responses. And all the data collected through these dynamic form fields can be stored, analysed and integrated with an organisation’s systems of record. Ultimately, Web Forms ensures a modern, dynamic form-filling customer experience with a solution that’s easy to manage and quick to deploy.

Using Web Forms in the Healthcare and Life Sciences industry

Organisations of all types and sizes need to move beyond static documents and PDFs and transform into a future of digital-first, dynamic agreement experiences. Web Forms provides an interactive and efficient experience for form fillers and in particular, can be of benefit to the Healthcare and Life Sciences industry in the use cases of: clinical trial enrolment, new outpatient registration, informed consent, patient discharge, virus screening. It’s time to move beyond static documents and PDFs – and frustrating user experiences. DocuSign Web Forms offers a modern, interactive form-filling experience for your customers and employees.