Document Retrieval: The Essentials

After extensive experience with the use of document imaging in the hospital business office environment, we have determined that there are four fundamental requirements for document retrieval that must be met in order to implement a successful solution.

Each requirement is an essential component for the creation of a successful retrieval solution. The following discussion details the role that each plays.

1. Documents for an account are retrieved together in an online collection

In a successful implementation, each document will be stored in exactly one image file. This provides the ability to retrieve a set of image files for all the documents for an account at once. The user can view the collection as a set of thumbnail images or cover pages.

Alternatives are to store each page of each document in an image file, or to store many documents together in a single image file. Both of these alternatives make it more difficult to locate information quickly and easily.

2. The information for an account can be located instantly on the exact page where it occurs, without the need to page through the document image

The performance gain from the use of document imaging is quickly deteriorated the more the end user needs to search through documents for the account of interest. Alternatively, there is no faster way to retrieve account information than to be instantly presented with the page that it occurs on. The result is a document imaging approach that truly provides the potential performance boost possible from effective document imaging.

3. Accounts and documents can be retrieved using information other than the account number, such as patient name, admissions date, and discharge date

The flexibility to search through accounts and documents using information other than the account number can be an important time saver. Otherwise, the user may be dramatically slowed down from the need to cross reference information manually to find an account number.

4. Quality control must be rigorously applied to create a capture and accuracy rate of nearly 100%

If a document is not scanned, or is improperly indexed, it cannot be retrieved. There is a very, very low tolerance for "missing" documents. As a result, substantial quality control processes and labor must be devoted to ensure a consistent capture and accuracy level of close to 100%.

A large amount of labor for indexing is needed to meet requirements 1, 2, and 3. A competent quality control staff is required to meet requirement 4.

These specifications provide unprecedented and unmatched retrieval capabilities. They are not typical of garden variety document imaging systems or traditional approaches. They are rigorous, and for most document imaging applications, can be relaxed to a degree. However, for the hospital business office, they are all critical.

The labor and other resources needed are too expensive to cost justify for a single business office.

The centralization and large scale implementation of our services at our document imaging facility provide the means to meet all of the above requirements in a cost effective manner. The centralization of our facilities enables us to keep per-unit processing costs much lower than what any single business office would incur.