Transforming patient communications and saving time with streamlined letters

At a glance

Outcome

Solution

Challenge

Five hours of manual letter writing saved each week. 

Significant reduction in staff stress, meaning less burn-out. 

Ability to function as a paperless company, saving time spent manually stamping and posting letters. 

Letters reach the patients before they get home.

Letter writing with autosave, ensuring work won't be lost.

A cloud-based system that stores and saves all work, eliminating the need for downloading and uploading documents.

Consistent updates that help consistently improve the functionality of key features.

Ability to work within the system in tandem with clinical staff to get work done quickly.

Constant software glitches leading to hours of lost work. 

Manual process of dowloading and uploading documents taking too much time.

No progression in competitor systems, so no improvements to software.

Tracy Sutton is a former medical secretary, and runs the medical transcription service, TAS Secretarial Services. Here, she works with a large number of practices to transcribe and send clinical correspondence. She has been using Semble for four years.

The challenge: Glitchy patient letters becoming stressful & time consuming

Tracy had used a number of different practice management systems for her clients’ patient communications before finding Semble, and often found the lack of progression within the products frustrating.

One system she used frequently, DGL, wasn’t cloud-based, and she recalls that the connection to their system would often drop without her team being able to save their documents. A lot of their work would be lost, and a lot of time would be wasted.

“It saves us four to five hours a week. Letters are smooth and easy to use. You can easily add in GP and patient details, it’s all there. A few seconds and those things that used to be difficult are done.

Tracy Sutton Manager, TAS Secretarial Services

“It was a nightmare. I don’t think they'd made any changes for about 20 years! We’d struggle to connect to the local server, and we’d have to constantly restart our computers. We’d have to download documents to type them and then re-upload. It would take a really long time.

“We also tried Carebit, but it was just too clicky. When Semble arrived, we thought that’s it – that’s our favourite. It’s so much easier to go online and it’s all there, stored in the cloud.”

The solution: A cloud-based system that makes professional patient communications quick and easy

Tracy has now been working with Semble for four years, after her medical clients began recommending it to her.

As a cloud-based system, Semble makes letter writing easier and more reliable for Tracy and her team, with autosave preventing any key data loss. There is also complete flexibility on the look and feel of the correspondence, which means the letters can be tailored to the client Tracy is writing a letter for - this ensures the clinic styling stays aligned across the whole patient journey.

This simplicity around creating letters makes their work quicker to complete, easier share with the necessary recipients – and as such, far less stressful.

“It saves us four to five hours a week. Letters are smooth and easy to use – and they automatically save. You can easily add in GP and patient details, it’s all there. A few seconds and those things that used to be difficult are done.

“It means I can have a bit of time back in my day, so I’m not burnt out. Before, I was at my desk 24/7. Now things move that bit quicker, so I can get on with other work.”

“Our doctors love it. Letters are so easy to send, they can be with the patient before they even get home. The patient portal means their patients can access all their documents easily, without needing to call and request copies."

Tracy Sutton Manager, TAS Secretarial Services

This ease of writing benefits both Tracy and her medical clients. Whilst the clinicians are using Semble for appointments, Tracy can also be within the system, writing letters that have been assigned to her via the tasks function. This means the practices working with Tracy are as efficient as they can be when it comes to patient communications - and don't miss any crucial correspondence.

“Our doctors love it. Letters are so easy to send, they can be with the patient before they even get home. The patient portal means their patients can access all their documents easily, without needing to call and request copies.

"This is a huge benefit for a lot of medical secretaries – many still print and post letters. With Semble we don’t need paper anymore; we don’t have to send letters, or stamp envelopes for hours. Instead it’s all there in the portal – results, letters, everything.”