Electronic Documents: Lost In Translation

A few years ago, the actor, Bill Murray, was nominated for an Oscar for his role in the surprise hit, "Lost in Translation." While the film made for great entertainment, living with the problem of documents "lost in translation" is not.

Providers today face a great deal of regulatory and financial pressure to utilize technologies that will enhance patient safety and improve efficiency. There’s growing interest in converting documents to standard formats which can be used for archiving for workflows, for use on the web or for presentation of data from HIS systems. But converting hundreds of existing documents isn’t easy, especially since these documents may have been created using a wide variety of software, such as Word, Quark, PageMaker, Acrobat, HTML, and other programs. Adding to the complexity, most forms automation software is proprietary; as are HIS formats. The situation gets bleaker when businesses decide to convert preprinted forms to electronic, only to discover that their contracts with forms vendors don’t allow access to electronic originals. The result? Islands of "lost" documents and some unexpected costs.

Documents whether Preprinted, Printed On Demand, Form-Filled on the Web, blank, filled with data, archived or emailed all require conversion to multiple electronic formats in their lifetime. This can only be accomplished if they are developed or converted in an open source design program. Thus the true cost of moving your documents forward to the next environment may not be the cost of the software; it’s the cost of converting hundreds of documents that already exist in various formats. We have seen many providers buy document software only to discover that the cost of using it is prohibitive. It gets mothballed. Before you convert even the first document, you must have a system in place to address the "what" and "how" of the documents already circulating in your system. Otherwise, you’ve simply added a new format, and have done nothing to actually improve the processes within your system.

How do you move forward in Document Management? This essential step won’t come from forms vendors whose priority and whose cash flow supports management of only preprinted documents: most of these firms have dropped away from global document management. What your business needs is an approach—such as the one offered by Xerox—or other document management vendors—that will offer a total program for controlling all document types. And that will work with your internal staff. Stated simply, you must get a full and complete accounting of all the forms being used in your facility and a plan before you convert them to electronic versions.

So what does your future look like? Don’t give up in the face of ‘unbearable’ challenges and costs. Just look globally at document management today.

Rob Harding, President
FormFast, Inc.