{"id":18442,"date":"2026-03-20T17:43:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T16:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.key-stream.com\/?p=18442"},"modified":"2026-03-23T12:10:50","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T11:10:50","slug":"paperless-not-without-paper-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.key-stream.com\/news\/paperless-not-without-paper-first\/","title":{"rendered":"Paperless? Not Without Paper First."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sitting at my 200-year-old desk, checking a 120-year-old pocket watch, and recapping a century-old fountain pen, while dictating this into my phone and letting AI help shape it into a blog.<\/p>\n<p>The irony isn\u2019t lost on me.<\/p>\n<p>Just before writing this, I spoke to someone who\u2019s spent years focused on the problem, not the solution. And it struck me we\u2019re still doing this far too often!<\/p>\n<p>I started my journey with computing in the 1970s at night school.<\/p>\n<p>On my first evening, I couldn\u2019t find the classroom. But I noticed paper scattered across the floor\u2014ticker tape, though I didn\u2019t know it then. I followed it. It led me straight to the computer room. That moment stuck.<\/p>\n<p>A decade later, working in insurance, I was helping digitise records\u2014replacing paper with systems. That\u2019s when a phrase came to me:<\/p>\n<p><b>\u201cThe path to paperless is paved with paper.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Another 20 years on, in the NHS, I found myself saying it again and I\u2019ve been saying it ever since.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the point.<\/p>\n<p>It all starts with people.<\/p>\n<p>Patients are people.<\/p>\n<p>Practitioners are people.<\/p>\n<p>But too often, we focus on systems, products, and technology before we\u2019ve done the groundwork.<\/p>\n<p>The real value lies in the\u00a0<i>pre-work<\/i>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span role=\"presentation\">Designing the right processes<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span role=\"presentation\">Defining clear procedures<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span role=\"presentation\">Ensuring everything is aligned<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Only then can we deliver products that are truly ready to be used at the point of care, ready for the full patient journey.<\/p>\n<p>Technology doesn\u2019t solve problems on its own.<\/p>\n<p>People do.<\/p>\n<p>Processes enable them.<\/p>\n<p>Products support them.<\/p>\n<p>Get that order wrong, and we stay stuck.<\/p>\n<p>Get it right, and transformation actually happens.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s the conversation we should be having and it\u2019s long overdue.<\/p>\n<p><span data-teams=\"true\">I&#8217;m having that Conversation next week at Rewired, I&#8217;m sitting down with Harry Pettet, a subject matter expert in EDMS in healthcare. I&#8217;m going to ask the questions that need answering to help us really drive transformational change within the NHS. <strong>Keep an eye open for my next post on the 30th March 2026 for the outcome of that conversation.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sitting at my 200-year-old desk, checking a 120-year-old pocket watch, and recapping a century-old fountain pen, while dictating this into my phone and letting AI help shape it into a blog. The irony isn\u2019t lost on me. Just before writing this, I spoke to someone who\u2019s spent years focused on the problem, not the solution.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":18445,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","footnotes":""},"categories":[74,64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-consulting","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.key-stream.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.key-stream.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.key-stream.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.key-stream.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.key-stream.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18442"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.key-stream.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18451,"href":"https:\/\/www.key-stream.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18442\/revisions\/18451"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.key-stream.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/18445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.key-stream.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.key-stream.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.key-stream.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}