"Going Paperless” is an industry buzzword that gets a lot of attention, and has been a goal for many, if not most, healthcare organizations for years. But even with a lot of talk about document imaging and Optical Character Recognition (OCR), there are still questions about the specific benefits that imaging, OCR and document management will bring to an organization. At Ascend, we have helped countless healthcare organizations achieve their “paperless” objectives, and here are some of the top benefits that our customers have seen after implementing a modern imaging and OCR solution.
- Speed
There is a fixed number of hours in the day, and it is critical for every organization to figure out how to do more with those few hours. A modern imaging and OCR solution will cut the processing time of a document by over 80%! By removing time consuming and manual processes, your employees and teammates can focus on their core competencies and get out of the business of shuffling paper.
- Reduced Cost
In addition to the very real cost of your staff’s labor, there are countless other costs which may be reduced by implementing an imaging and OCR solution. Some of these areas include: printing, copying, consumables & maintenance for office equipment, the cost of lost documents, and shipping costs. We have helped one company save over half a million dollars in annual shipping costs just through imaging alone!
- Environmental Concerns
We’ve all seen the note at the bottom of inbound emails asking us to think twice before printing a document, and we all understand that reducing the consumption of paper does have a measurable effect on the environment. But imaging can also help with environmental concerns in ways you may not have considered. How much fuel is used to ship paper to the office? What about transporting documents to offsite storage? How about running the climate control for document storage areas?
- Reduce Errors
Unfortunately, people make mistakes. We forget things, make typos, lose and misfile documents. Imaging and OCR will reduce expensive errors that can cost a healthcare organization hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
- Space
No matter if you store your own documents, or use an offsite storage provider - you are spending a lot of time and resources on maintaining boxes of paper. Imaging and OCR turns those crates of paper into usable information, and frees up areas for valuable office space.
- Availability
By scanning and extracting the information off paper documents with OCR, it makes the information and the document image available in multiple places and to multiple systems with no delay in searching for the image or information retrieval. With a few clicks of a mouse, the document is available for those that need it.
- Easy Management
With a modern imaging and content management solution, document storage, security, and retention can all be automated. No longer does an employee have to take time to manually file or purge records - document management becomes almost effortless!
- Security
In healthcare, document security is a constant concern. In addition to the compliance issues brought on by extensive regulation, there are real costs that misfiled or mishandled documents can create. With electronic documents, access may be strictly controlled and you will have the capability to fully audit any access to the documents.
While there are many more benefits of Imaging and OCR, these are just a few of the top ones that we have found over 15 years of helping Healthcare organizations implement the best solutions on the market. “Going Paperless” is not just a buzzword - it is a very achievable goal that will provide immense benefits to your organization!
