When the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act was implemented in 2009, hospitals and other healthcare providers could benefit financially from Medicare and Medicaid payments if they adopted electronic medical records (EMR) by a particular point. Eventually, these incentives will turn into penalties, forcing nearly all healthcare facilities to eventually adapt this software.
For hospital staff members, this means not only switching to new tools like tablets and smartphones to record patients' information, but also ensuring that all documents are efficiently and securely transferred to an electronic form. By working with a bulk scanning service, however, facilities can efficiently scan documents, so time isn't wasted on administrative work.
At the same time, an article in EHR intelligence explained how even with the HITECH Act, most hospitals will likely continue to use at least some paper in the future. Author Kyle Murphy explained that while EHR can lessen paper, eliminating it is another story.
"Paper still floats around healthcare organizations and between providers," Murphy wrote in the article. "Paper documents came in from external sources. Patient registration forms require handwriting."
Until hospitals are completely paperless, an unlikely situation at least in the near future, healthcare facilities will still need to digitize paper through high-quality scanning devices that can read handwriting accurately. By working with document scanning services and data entry services, hospitals can quickly turn paper documents into electronic ones, while knowing that the data will be error-free, an important factor when dealing with patient's information.
Tab Service Company is a Chicago based company with over 53 years of experience as a data processing service provider. We provide business with outsourcing solutions for document scanning services, data entry services and mailing/lettershop services. As a SOC2-approved service organization, we apply industry-best practices to our approach with clients.