More healthcare organizations are looking to document management solutions to improve their ability to handle all the paper that's still part of the care delivery process.
That importance increases as more organizations move to electronic records. Healthcare organizations must find a way to tie paper documents to electronic records.
Keeping paper documented is important and a challenge for healthcare organizations, said Deborah Kohn, principal of Dak Systems Consulting of San Mateo, Calif.
Most providers - even physician offices - have been using computer technology for years and have eliminated a lot of paper, she said.
Document management systems can involve many different types of technology. At its simplest levels, paper documents are scanned and then linked to an individual's electronic information.
Another approach, COLD (Computer Output to Laser Disk) technology, turns data into an image on a computer screen, enabling the user to see information in a format that resembles the paper form a consumer would otherwise be viewing, Kohn said. COLD enables vast quantities of information to be stored, but not on paper.
Optical character recognition also falls under the document management umbrella. It reads data off paper and can extract what's needed into a database, she said.
Document management also involves keeping track of the various versions of documents that are pushed out to consumers and providers, said James Watson, CEO of Doculabs, a Chicago-based consulting firm that works with payers.
Improved document management - and getting more information distributed in forms other than paper - is a major issue for healthcare organizations, Watson said. He noted one of his company's clients spends more than $250 million a year on printing and disseminating paper.
"Postage is a big part of that," he said. "To the extent healthcare organizations can automate, they can save big bucks."
Communication with consumers is the most paper-intensive, he said, while most provider-payer exchanges are electronic.
About 48 percent of all hospitals are using some form of document management technology, said Michael Davis of HIMSS Analytics. Use of that technology is exploding in the business office, where some 39 percent of providers are using document imaging this year, compared to 22 percent in 2005, data from HIMSS Analytics show.
"It's still a pretty good growth market and not a saturated market," he said. "We see a lot of organizations utilizing document imaging and document management to improve workflow."
Some large vendors include a document imaging component as part of their suite of products, but some niche vendors provide systems with specialized components.
"There will always be paper within the workflow, so document management will be a very important component of trying to get to the paperless environment," Davis said. "When organizations put these products in, they can show some pretty good returns on investment."