INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Software for Business
After the paper transition is planned and executed, the organisation is ready to go live, with the Electronic Medical Record and Electronic Health Record solution providing access to information electronically.
During the transition phase, there may be a slowdown, but once the system has been adopted, time and cost savings will be incremental. To ensure that transition is smooth, you need to make sure everyone in the organisation is on-boarded, establish security protocols, conduct routine maintenance and backups for the system, and develop a disaster recovery plan.
With today’ s wide variety of hard copy patient records, including faxed prescriptions, physician orders, referrals, collections of signatures, medical charts and other accumulated patient information, it is hard to imagine how to convert to a paperless office.
To ensure successful migration of paper charts and information to an Electronic Medical Record system, it is important to first determine what approach you want to use to convert your documents, files and charts.
These include:
• Manual in-house process, where documents are scanned directly into the solution
Key takeaways
• Electronic Medical Records systems are designed to keep track of a patient’ s health and medical history in an electronic format
• Selecting the right scanning solution is the first step to becoming a successful paperless environment
• Transitioning any healthcare organisation from a paperbased environment to a digital one can be a complicated proposition
David Whitton, General Manager of Kodak Alaris, Middle East, Africa, East Europe, Turkey, Russia.
• Purchase a solution that provides sophisticated information indexing and allows users to scan charts into the solution
• Outsource the project to a service provider that specialises in document conversion for healthcare systems
When converting existing data and considering scanning options, first and foremost organisations need to ensure the integrity of data and image quality. They also need to consider ease of use: Is it a simple push-button process, or is it more complicated. And, of course, speed: How many pages scans per minute are expected. Also, is a backup scanner needed. This is important when considering the high volume of paperwork being transitioned.
You need to consider level of service from the solution provider. Will the scanner provider replace or fix a unit if there are break-downs. How promptly will they be able to correct a fault. Will they provide guidance to help make the transition smooth. These are questions that should be considered when selecting a solution provider.
Scanning is a relatively simple method for capturing electronic images of paper documents and storing them for online reference, either through a stand-alone solution or an Electronic Medical Record or Electronic Health Record or Enterprise Content Management solution. This process simply replaces paper charts with images of paper documents that are readily accessible, and most providers offer solutions that integrate with existing healthcare applications.
However, what you really need to consider is how well the scanning solution performs and whether they can be customised to work with your Electronic Medical Record system. The most important features to consider when selecting a scanning solution are quality of image scanned, ease of use, speed and service.
Selecting the right scanning solution is the first step to becoming a successful paperless environment. Once you have taken the leap to become digital, you need to consider the most effective way to incorporate all existing patient documentation and information. A documented conversion protocol must be established and followed as part of your organisation’ s transition to digital.
Selecting a suitable scanning solution for transition to Electronic Medical Record is a critical first step that includes the conversion of paper files into electronic images that can be imported into your Electronic Medical Record platform for access. To make this transition seamless, you need to ensure your solution offers the appropriate scanning volume and high-quality images. Otherwise, this step may be a slow and arduous process.
Many organisations mistakenly believe they can get by with a commodity scanner, they already have in the office. Shaving dollars off your document conversion programme will result in wasted man-hours and frustration on the part of employees, ultimately diminishing the quality of care delivered to patients. Efficiently converting back-files and day-forward documents is an important step in your organisation’ s transition to Electronic Medical Record transformation.
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