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Practice Business: Paper Click

Paper Click

What could be greener than transforming your practice into a paperless haven? Swapping paper and pen for PC and mouse - and recycling that paper stack - is easier than you think.  

The expense and hassle of storing paper files on site may be getting to you; perhaps you’re moving premises or concerned about disaster recovery, fire, flood and theft. These spurs, along with the desire to turn over a new, greener leaf may be pushing you to go paperless.  So where should you start?

• Work out what your main objectives are – whether to save the planet, save money, or save yourself from drowning in a sea of paperwork. Identifying your primary goal will determine the best way forward. 
• Look at your practice’s workflows and methodology; where is the largest quantity of paperwork, the biggest bottleneck or the largest amount of energy wastage? Concentrate on finding a solution to this.  
• Phasing out paper can lead you to re-examine your entire business methodology to ensure that the new system avoids current pitfalls. Remember: a supplier can advise you how their product or service works but only you can know your practice’s requirements. 
• Decide which paper aspects of your current setup you cannot do without: printing hard copies of doctors’ daily schedules may be essential but an alternative to printing accounts information may be something you expect from a paperless solution.
• Assess your backlog of paperwork. Are most files relevant and recent, or out of date and seldom referenced?  This will determine how they are managed. 
• Use a specialist Healthcare Commission compliant medical scanning company (try Microstat: www.microstat.co.uk) who will collect all paperwork, scan, index and OCR the records if relevant, and safely recycle the original files.  
• Transfer archived paperwork onto DVD - 14 filing cabinets fit onto a single DVD making storage and reference far easier and cheaper than paper files. Incorporate current files into an electronic practice management system for easy viewing. 
• There is going paperless, and there is staying paperless: ask suppliers and partner companies to send documents electronically where possible, ensure you always keep on top of scanning and utilise a practice management system, such as Med+DBase (www.meddbase.com), which allows information, such as lab results and accounts info, to be electronically delivered to the patient record.

What is OCR?

OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition – software which recognises text from an electronic image to allow an intelligent keyword search across the document. OCR allows letters to be retrieved from your archive by keyword search and helps to locate misfiled documents, which would be impossible to find if left in paper form.