The 6PM Group has announced that Dakota Integrated Solutions, the specialist Manchester based Healthcare IT Solution Provider, has been nominated UK Reseller for its intelligent File and Inventory Tracking (iFITTM) Solution.

6PM iFITTM Solution gives hospitals the tools to manage their paper-based health records, alongside their physical assets, including medical equipment, medical supplies, porters, etc. Underpinning iFITTM is the basic principle that any paper record, or physical asset which moves around hospital locations can be tagged and tracked, allowing for a full audit trail.

Implementing iFITTM for the management of health records provides the trust with immediate cash-releasing opportunities in library overheads. Thanks to a combination of radio frequency identify passive tags attached to the patient’s health records and fixed RFID readers and sensors deployed in key traffic areas throughout the hospital, patient records can be tracked through their movements round the hospital.

With NHS Trusts under significant pressure to become “paper-lite”, reduce costs and improve efficiencies, patient record tracking is a real challenge, with staff not always able to locate health records in time for clinics and operating sessions, thereby causing unnecessary delays and in some instances, cancellation of surgical procedures. Using the iFITTM Solution, Trusts can drive efficiencies and best practice around health records, reducing overheads by slashing time it takes for library staff to file away patient records each evening and, crucially, locate relevant records easily.

Steve Wightman, 6PM deputy chief executive officer, commented: “Our iFITTM platform empowers hospital staff with modern logistics management technology, which enables them to track and manage records and physical assets like beds and high value medical equipment very efficiently. A number of NHS Trusts have already successfully deployed the solution and have enjoyed a return on their investment in less than 12 months. We are delighted to have signed Dakota as 6PM UK Reseller and are confident that our partnership will open new opportunities for 6PM within NHS Trusts. Dakota has a very strong pedigree in Healthcare in this country, and understand the IT needs of clinicians and IT support staff in hospitals. The technical competencies and enthusiasm of their healthcare sales team makes them the perfect partner.”

Geoff Monk, head of Healthcare for Dakota IS added, “Dakota is delighted to announce this formal alliance with 6PM. Patient and health record management is a considerable challenge facing most of the hospitals which we are working with. The feedback which we have received from trusts having deployed the iFITTM has been extremely positive in terms of the considerable time savings and improved efficiencies achieved. What we find particularly attractive in the 6PM Solution is the fact that once fixed RFID readers are deployed in key traffic areas through the hospital for record tracking, the RFID sensor grid then allows for the tracking and management of other physical assets across the Trust. As such, it is a multi-departmental solution and a multi-purpose platform, which makes it a very compelling, future-proof proposition to the trusts.”