White PapersThe Health Information Technology (HIT) initiative and recent legislation to remove barriers to automation have created an environment that encourages medical institutions to investigate technology solutions as a vehicle to solve these business challenges. Document management software increasingly plays a critical role, ensuring that medical information is accurate, consistent, secure, and delivered as efficiently as possible. Furthermore, it can serve as either a first step in the implementation of an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system, or it can complement an existing EMR system to make certain that patient records are complete.
Document management software can guarantee that patient records are no longer lost or misplaced while simultaneously eliminating dependence on paper patient files. It can also make patient care and administrative tasks in hospitals, clinics, and private practices more productive and efficient.
www.docfinity.com / page 0 Questions for Hospitals, Clinics, and Private Practices to ask when considering Document Management Software Solutions By James Thumma, VP of Sales and Marketing, Optical Image Technology, Inc.Healthcare organizations face a multitude of challenges in their effort to provide the best patient care possible. Compliance with federal regulations, increased patient loads, escalating costs, and incomplete or inaccessible patient records are just some of the stresses faced within the industry. In order to remain competitive, medical service providers need to deliver the best patient services possible, complemented and supported by administrative services that operate as efficiently as any savvy business.The Health Information Technology (HIT) initiative and recent legislation to remove barriers to automation have created an environment that encourages medical institutions to investigate technology solutions as a vehicle to solve these business challenges. Document management software increasingly plays a critical role, ensuring that medical information is accurate, consistent, secure, and delivered as efficiently as possible. Furthermore, it can serve as either a first step in the implementation of an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system, or it can complement an existing EMR system to make certain that patient records are complete. Document management software can guarantee that patient records are no longer lost or misplaced while simultaneously eliminating dependence on paper patient files. It can also make patient care and administrative tasks in hospitals, clinics, and private practices more productive and efficient. If your organization is considering a transition to electronic document management, it may be helpful to ask ten questions in an effort to find the software product that is the best fit for your practice: . Does it integrate with my existing EMR system?EMR software excels at capturing healthcare data, but it is rarely able to integrate and store other information that makes up a true patient chart emails, faxes, documents, voice files, etc. Document management software fills in the gaps that are lacking with most of the EMR software on the market, such as the inability to store administrative records and medical credentialing information. Make sure that any document management system that you are considering is able to integrate with your existing EMR system, if you have one. It must be able to communicate with a variety of software platforms, and it must be HL7 compliant so that it can interface with disparate medical applications using the industry standard messaging protocol.Document management software increasingly plays a critical role, ensuring that medical information is accurate, consistent, secure, and delivered as efficiently as possible. Furthermore, it can serve as either a first step in the implementation of an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system, or it can complement an existing EMR system to make certain that patient records are complete.Untitled Document page 2 / ph: 814.238.00382. Will it integrate with administrative, billing, HR, and other non-clinical departments?A good document management system must have the capability to integrate with and store information from every division of a healthcare facility not just medical records. It should have the capacity to electronically store employee records, hiring, termination and research records, credentialing and certification information, personnel files, and any other non-clinical applications that help the practice run more efficiently. It should facilitate instant access to both clinical and non-clinical records from any Web browser. A system that is capable of addressing all of these business areas, regardless of whether they are implemented simultaneously or over a number of years, will save you time, resources, money, and headaches. . Is the solution scalable?Many large healthcare facilities choose to roll out their transition to electronic records gradually. They start in one department and slowly work their way towards an enterprise-wide installation. Be sure to ask prospective solution providers whether their software has the capacity to fulfill your volume needs. If your clinic is considering expansion, will a proposed software solution be able to keep pace with future growth? Conversely, if you have a small practice, find out whether a software solution that is popular for large facilities is appropriate for you. 4. Does it offer workflow?Workflow is one of the most valuable tools available to medical services providers because it enables the right people to access critical information at the right time, wherever and whenever they need it, without jeopardizing patients privacy rights. Workflow enables you to automate processes electronically that involve a large number of routine tasks, such as approvals, denials, and signatures on documents. Papers that traditionally need to be handled by numerous people or departments can instead be routed and processed automatically, which improves accuracy, eliminates paper shuffling, reduces errors, shortens cycle times, and decreases your operational costs. Workflow can cut billing cycles in half, and can significantly improve efficiency for practices of all sizes. Without it, a document management system is static rather than dynamic, and your organization will not maximize its potential.5. What will be my return on investment?A document management system that is realistically priced to fit your organization can recoup fnancial returns as well as improve your business process. This results in elimination of paper records, fewer keystrokes, reduced costs, and increased efficiency. Its implementation usually results in faster and more accurate coding, lessens transcription costs, and reduces paper file storage and maintenance costs. Claims can be submitted electronically to Medicare, Medicaid and commercial insurers to reduce your processing time; supporting documentation can also be managed to verify that billing is submitted correctly. Automated security measures help you to comply with HIPAA and other regulations. Ultimately, these improvements lead to better and faster service for your patients and staff. A good document management system must have the capability to integrate with and store information from every division of a healthcare facility not just medical records. It should have the capacity to electronically store employee records, hiring, termination and research records, credentialing and certification information, personnel fles, and any other non-clinical applications that help the practice run more efficiently. Untitled Document www.docfinity.com / page 6. Will the system be easy to use?A document management system should be intuitive, since users have a wide range of abilities. It should provide your facility with the ability to index information in a way that is meaningful. The electronic document storage repository should be capable of being searched with the terms and methods that make sense to the users, so that information can be retrieved immediately without difficulty. Your biggest hurdle in transitioning from paper-based to electronic processes may be overcoming your end-users fears of change. Although communication with end-users and appropriate training contribute to a successful experience when implementing new technology, a system that is easy to use can quell fears and change apprehensive attitudes. 7. Will it help my organization comply with HIPAA, Medicare, HCFA, and other regulations? The implementation of document management software by itself does not automatically impart compliance. Rather, it enables you to automate your existing compliance measures. Consequently, it is important to carefully consider a product s security measures as well as its audit capabilities. Ask prospective vendors whether their products can be configured to automatically retain or purge records, and whether their software is capable of producing the audit trails that are required to meet your company s needs and industry regulations. A document management system must have the ability to quantitatively ensure that only persons who are predetermined to have access are permitted to retrieve, view, annotate, or otherwise work on patient files. 8. Does the solution offer system monitoring and reporting options?All computer systems face potential problems: overloads, system failures, back-ups, etc. A good document management system should have tools to identify potential problems before they become serious. Access to real-time information related to your system s performance enables you to proactively identify bottlenecks, slowdowns, and other potential issues. Some systems even have the ability to automatically email, call, or page administrators if a critical error is detected, ensuring a timely correction to the error. System monitoring tools help you to increase productivity, avoid system failures, and enhance application control. The ability to create system reports is another monitoring tool that no healthcare facility should be without. A reports tool presents information about the system in a graphical format. It allows administrators to monitor application status, executables, event logs, databases, uptime, performance counters, drive space, and any other aspect of a Windows environment. System reports provide administrators with the ability to monitor workflows and view audit trail statistics and other functions before a slowdown occurs.Untitled Document page 4 / ph: 814.238.00389. Is the system web based?Whether your organization is a small practice or large hospital, having one central information system that can be accessed from anywhere at any time is no longer a mere luxury. Web-based document management and workflow adds global power to healthcare organizations by providing direct access to their electronic documents to anyone with proper rights, anywhere, at any time, via the World Wide Web. Doctors have instant, simultaneous access to patient records for consultations. Patient information is no longer lost, misplaced, or duplicated. Users can retrieve and workflow any stored document or object, including X-rays, radiology reports, credentialing information, EOBs, denial processing, remittance, emails, faxes, documents, payroll information, voice files, and wav files, to name a few. 0. Is it affordable for your office? For your department? For your enterprise?The answer to these questions can depend on several factors, including the cost of the project, scalability of the solution, the IT skills of your staff, and the resources and support available to the staff within your organization. On average, most organizations recoup their monetary investment several years after implementation. Smaller organizations that would ideally implement an enterprise-wide solution are sometimes unable to do so because they do not have the funding and IT resources needed to support an enterprise-wide implementation. Some software vendors offer you the opportunity to address these problems while realizing the financial benefits more quickly with an Application Service Provider (ASP) option. Organizations can either lease services from an ASP, which would not require any administrative or maintenance responsibilities, or they can host an ASP.Serving as an ASP host is an innovative, revenue-generating opportunity that involves purchasing and maintaining the back end of the technology essentially everything that deals with servers, databases, storage, etc. while selling software licenses that provide access to the user interface of the technology to subsidiaries or to other departments within your facility. End users from other departments can then incorporate capture, storage, retrieval, workflow, content automation, disaster recovery, and other technologies into their business processes. Just as there are diverse ways to implement a specialized document management system, there are also many different ASP models. Find a vendor who understands your specific needs and is willing to work with you to implement an affordable and appropriate solution for your facility.To find out more about how document management software can help your practice, clinic, or hospital, please contact Optical Image Technology (http://www.docfinity.com) at 814.238.0038 or email info@docfinity.com. 2006 Optical Image Technology, Inc. All rights reserved. DocFinity, IntraVIEWER, and XML FormFLOW are trademarks or registered trademarks of Optical Image Technology, Inc.Whether your organization is a small practice or large hospital, having one central information system that can be accessed from anywhere at any time is no longer a mere luxury. Web-based document management and workflow adds global power to healthcare organizations by providing direct access to their electronic documents to anyone with proper rights, anywhere, at any time, via the World Wide Web.
