You've Scanned Your Healthcare Documents … Now What?

By Dave McKanna, product marketing manager, Nuance

Scanning is just the first step in an optimized workflow for paper based clinical documents. The goal behind any clinical scanning process should be to enhance your operational efficiency and improve the quality of patient care.

In our last two articles we discussed, one, why the handling of paper based patient records remains important; and two, the differences between basic scanning and integrated healthcare scanning workflows. In this article we want to discuss your options to improve your paper based workflows now that you've converted your paper documents to digital files. There are a number of steps you can take to ensure you get the most out of your scanning activities whether you're scanning patient history, admittance forms, billing and claim forms, or critical patient information like test results or consult notes from external providers.

Are you making the most of your scanned documents? Unfortunately, many of the scanning implementations in healthcare today fall short because the scan process is viewed as complete once the document has been scanned. But that is only one step in the scan process. There is a lot of added value that comes from integrating advanced PDF features into scan workflows. And it is simple when you know what to do.

MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR PDFS

Most common output format for scanning is the broadly accepted PDF (Portable Document Format) standard. PDF is a great format for taking unstructured data and images, which are common in healthcare, and allowing you to create files that are easy to print and view. Yet, there is much more you can do with software and processes that are matched to your workflow requirements.

Modify and Merge: PDF is more useful when you can add information and make changes when needed. For example, imagine marking up documents to include annotations or date stamp, indicating which physician reviewed the file, and if the record was approved for entry into the EHR. Or merging multiple document types to create a single PDF file for easy management and sharing of multiple records pertaining to a particular patient.