Basic HTML Version
24
sustainabletimes
01732 759725
document management
Signs of the times
1. e-Signatures
Greater Baltimore Medical Center
(GBMC) is usingWacom signature
tablets to reduce its environmental
footprint, lower costs and increase
patient satisfaction.
It recently deployed 20Wacom
STU-500 signature tablets with Access
Intelligent Forms Suite (IFS) and Access
e-Signature software to help generate
e-forms at patient registration. Forms
now come with patient demographics
pre-filled and barcodes that facilitate
auto-indexing in a Hyland Software
OnBase electronic content management
system.
According to Cherie Patterson, Patient
Access Applications Trainer at GBMC, the
ability to capture and apply electronic
signatures has made registration quicker
and easier for patients.
“The combination of Wacom’s LCD
STU-500 signature tablets and Access’s
e-forms and electronic patient signature
solutions have created a fast, paperless
registration process. It has further
reduced our paper costs and several
patients have commented on how much
faster their registration experience now
is,” she said.
Instead of printing patient forms
twice, with one copy for the patient and
one to go into their chart, GBMC now
asks if patients would like a copy. Most
say “no,” helping GBMC to save money
and maximise the environmental benefits
already achieved by switching to e-forms
on demand.
“With our Wacom and Access solution
we’ve greatly reduced our paper output
and waste,” said Patterson. “Ninety-seven
percent of patients decline a copy of their
forms packet, so everybody wins.”
www.wacom.com
In honour of October’sWorld
Paper-Free Day, we highlight
three paper-less business
processes that can
save time and
money
2. Digital mailrooms
Scanning mail as it is opened in a mailroom enables mail
to be stored and distributed electronically. This reduces
the amount of paper flowing around a business and, when
integrated with an electronic document management
system, improves retrieval times and gives staff a single view
of all PC-generated and scanned documents relating to a
customer, supplier or process.
Organisations with high volumes of incoming mail are
already capturing and digitising mail to save manpower,
speed up document workflow and improve access to
information, and there now exist solutions for smaller
businesses too.
Neopost has just launched an all-in-one electronic
document management system comprising a duplex colour
scanner (with 50-sheet ADF); computer with touch screen
display; embedded archiving server with 1000GB disk storage
(enough for 3 million B&W pages); and software for scanning,
digitising, processing, storing and retrieving all manner
of paper documents, including letters, invoices, internal
documents and forms.
The IMW-20 offers specific workflows for invoice
validation and mail scanning. In the case of the latter, this
includes the ability to route scans directly to a department,
departmental supervisor or to the virtual mailboxes of
individual workers who receive email notification when any
new mail is received.
Other useful features include built-in traceability so that
a scanned letter can be tracked on its route to the intended
recipient; stamp and barcode separation for batch scanning;
OCR data extraction for automatic indexing; and a network
capability that allows remote groups, warehouses and offices
to be integrated into enterprise-wide systems.
www.neopost.co.uk/imw-20
0800 731 1334
3. Data capture in
the field
For digital pen and paper
specialist Anoto, scanning itself
is an unnecessary expense and
productivity drain.
It recently surveyed US and UK
businesses with 50-200 employees and
found that 61% of respondents scan
between 50 and 100 pages per day and
more than four out of 10 (44%) spend
between one and five hours per day
scanning documents. Based on Anoto’s
estimate that scanning costs 5.4 pence
per page, this represents a big cost to
business.
Anoto says a digital pen solution
is far more efficient at capturing
data, as it simultaneously creates a
handwritten record on a paper form
and a digital version that can be
transmitted instantly via a Bluetooth-
enabled smartphone for validation and
processing.
Torfaen Training is using a destiny
e-pen solution based on Anoto
technology to speed up the enrolment
of new students and apprentices. The
company’s 40 assessors still fill in paper
enrolment forms, but they now use a
digital pen that digitally captures all ink
marks made on the form and transmits
them to destiny’s secure servers where
they are converted from handwriting
to text. A couple of minutes later
the completed form is available on
destiny’s hosted online ‘Manage’
service where Torfaen Training’s admin
support team can compare it against a
PDF of the original handwritten form.
Once approved, the information is
automatically submitted to the training
company’s Maytas MIS system.
www.destinywireless.com