August 23rd, 2010
With the low-cost scanners available in the market today, it can be tempting to tackle large projects yourself. Not so fast!
It’s important that you think through all aspects of preparation, scanning, and organization before you start. Most companies initially think they have the resources and know-how to complete large projects successfully. However, most quickly realize it’s not as fast and smooth as anticipated.
Have you asked yourself the following questions:
1) Do you know how to prepare your documents properly to allow smooth continuous scanning of your files?
2) Do you have an idea of how you are going to separate and organize the new digitized files?
3) Do you know what a double-feed is and how the scanner software handles double-feeds?
4) What is the optimum scanning settings to get the best image quality, speed, and digital image size.
5) Do you know the difference between simplex and duplex?
6) Do you know how to use control sheets and patch codes?
7) Do you want to create searchable documents by utilizing Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
These are just a few questions a company must consider before embarking on a large scanning project. OptiScan has been scanning experts since 1991 and have grown up with the industry. We can assist you with onsite scanning experts, perform the entire conversion project for you. Contact us to discuss your project and allow us to give you some options.
Tags: Document Management, ocr, scan, scanner, scanning
Posted in Document Scanning | No Comments »
June 28th, 2010
In order for medical practices to receive federal stimulus funding in order to partially subsidize a purchased EMR system, AND comply with current mandates to eliminate fiscal penalties later on, practices will need to demonstrate “Meaningful Use”. The question is: How? Here is what we know today:
- The Government will begin stimulus payouts for eligible practices demonstrating “Meaningful Use” with certified EMR systems in 2011? EMR systems must be certified by a ONC Authorized Testing and Certification Body (ONC-ATCB).
- As part of the criteria to receive this funding, you must actually demonstrate USE of an EMR system for a percentage of your Medicaid OR Medicare patients to receive funding for a consecutive number of days? For more information on activity requirements reference https://www.cms.gov/EHRIncentivePrograms/ .
Take a look at the stimulus funding table below:
|
Amount You will Receive Each Year |
| Year You First File |
2011 |
2012 |
2013 |
2014 |
2015 |
2016 |
Total |
| 2011 |
$18,000 |
$12,000 |
$8,000 |
$4,000 |
$2,000 |
$0 |
$44,000 |
| 2012 |
$0 |
$18,000 |
$12,000 |
$8,000 |
$4,000 |
$2,000 |
$44,000 |
| 2013 |
$0 |
$0 |
$15,000 |
$12,000 |
$8,000 |
$4,000 |
$39,000 |
| 2014 |
$0 |
$0 |
$0 |
$12,000 |
$8,000 |
$4,000 |
$24,000 |
| 2015 or Later |
$0 |
$0 |
$0 |
$0 |
$0 |
$0 |
$0 |
Table Information provided by Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions, Inc.
Based on the information in this table, the longer you wait to implement an EMR system and demonstrate “Meaningful Use”, the less funding you will get.
How Digitizing Can Help You Achieve “Meaningful Use”
While exact requirements for “Meaningful Use” are still not clearly defined, one of the most crucial aspects of achieving the criteria for stimulus funding is your practice’s ability to demonstrate USE of the system for a consecutive period. As a pre-requisite the EMR system must be pre-loaded with basic patient info and pertinent historical data.
Scanning can make your transition significantly easier. With specialized high-speed scanner equipment critical historical sections from the practices legacy medical charts can quickly be digitized and linked to images to the electronic patient record in the EMR system. By doing this, practice staff/physicians will have digital images of the physical chart one click away and linked to the electronic patient record.
OptiScan has a proven methodology for leveraging practice patient databases with barcode technology assisting with batch processing of paper-charts, digitizing the paper, and linking digitized chart to EMR quickly and completely with full-tracking and monitoring along the way. We’ve worked with large Arizona practices such as Pima Heart Cardiology, Digestive Disease Consultants, Mesa Gastroenterology, Tri-City Cardiology and many others.
Tags: CCHIT, EHR, EMR, HITECH, Meaningful Use
Posted in Document Scanning, EMR Solutions | No Comments »
June 14th, 2010
Large engineering companies, government agencies, school districts and libraries have archived content on microfilm for decades. Typical film archives have been used for grade transcripts, equipment manuals, newspapers, accounting documents, engineering drawings, etc. In many cases, there are large amounts of valuable data on this film, but it’s very difficult to locate specific information when stored in this format. Here are the top five reasons for converting that microfilm and microfiche into a digital format:
- Equipment to read and create new film is outdated and readers are either hard to find, take up too much space, or are in need of repair.
- It can be extremely time consuming to search through film, whether it be 16mm rolls, 35mm rolls, or in microfiche format.
- In order to use the information, the image from the film needs to be printed, scanned, then optionally recognized optically (OCR) in order to make the data usable.
- Film is usually stored in one place and prone to disasters or degraded over time. Digital storage is safe and secure. Disaster recovery systems can also be integrated.
- Importing the digitized content into a document management system (along with index data or utilizing OCR techniques) converts the archives to a useful format. Retrieval can be quick and easy.
Organizations that make the commitment to digitize film archives have seen a substantial increase in efficiency. Time to search for digital archive images is drastically reduced, leading to better customer service and reduced labor costs.
Professional scanning bureaus have the expertise and equipment to efficiently digitize your archives. Although the economy is putting a squeeze on budgets, and these types of projects have been put on hold, consideration must be made on the cost for film storage and labor costs for retrieval.
Does your organization utilize microfilm or micofiche? If so, what has prevented you from digitizing the data?
Tags: document scanning benefits, image scanning, microfiche, microfilm
Posted in Document Scanning | No Comments »
LinkedIn
Twitter
Facebook
RSS