White Paper: Simplifying The Business Of Healthcare

To improve healthcare business processes and to ensure the best patient care, service providers need to digitize and automate the collection, distribution and management of infor- mation. But although the need is acknowledged, questions remain about the right combina- tion of solutions that will achieve a paperless environment. A number of these questions focus on electronic document management:

• What exactly is electronic document management (EDM)?
• Who needs it?
• Is it best suited for registration, patient records, billing, or the administrative departments?
• If you're implementing an application like EMR or replacing your Practice Management System, does that eliminate the need for EDM?

This whitepaper argues that implementing an electronic document management application is essential technology for any healthcare business, whether a single person practice or a multi- facility hospital organization, regardless of the practice-specific applications already in place. It provides examples of how the technology is used in various functional areas and/or departments of a healthcare provider organization. And it discusses the range of functionality available.