Is your healthcare facility at risk of making the wrong kind of headline?

It seems like every time I turn around there is another high profile HIPAA violation in the news.  While your organization may be making progress in establishing and strengthening your compliance framework it is worth a reminder that you shouldn’t forget to control and safeguard patient information on paper.

In one of many recent articles Nuance and Xerox jointly submitted through Healthcare Technology Online we highlighted the need to pay added attention to paper based breaches of PHI.  The article, titled “HHS’ Fastest Rising Category of Security Breach: Are You at Risk?”  by Randy Cusick from Xerox, highlights the fact that while healthcare organizations are broadly doing a better job of protecting patient information, there is significant room for improvement in the safeguarding and security of paper based documents.

In fact, according to reported data from the Department of Health and Human Services (Data source) there was a significant increase in the percentage of breaches involving paper documents from 2009 (18%) to 2011 (27%).   The main takeaway here is that many providers seem to be addressing the security issues inherent in their digital workflows, but may not be paying enough attention to paper-based processes and workflows.

The ongoing need to receive processes and print sensitive documents in a healthcare setting demands increased and improved security measures to ensure patient privacy and HIPAA compliance.  Does your print environment have security gaps?  Do your print devices meet your corporate security and risk management requirements?  Do you have a “print policy” in place to provide governance of paper and paper records?  Do you have authentication enabled for open access printing in your facility?  If you wouldn’t feel comfortable answering these questions in front of your CIO, it might be a good idea to check out Randy’s article.

Why accelerating the integration of Paper Records to the EHR is so important

The healthcare segment is still managing and processing significant volumes of paper based patient information.  In fact, independent research found that only 11% of the transmission of patient information from clinic-to-clinic is processed electronically (Markle Group 2011).  According to IDC the monthly scanning volumes of medical documents outpaces all other industries, and yet medical documents lag all other types for percentage of documents “scanned into business workflows” (IDC 2011).

OK – so we know hospitals are handling high volumes of paper, but how are they processing it all?  Let’s look at the challenge of integrating paper records from outside the hospital or clinic into the EHR more closely.  The biggest complaint with scanning in healthcare is that it is cumbersome and expensive.  Healthcare organizations usually address this in two ways.

1. In many instances, front office scanning solutions, with multiple desktop scanners, are in place that requires multiple manual steps to rename, parse, and store a simple static image file in a network folder or document management system before being manually linked to the EHR.
2. It is also very common, especially in larger hospitals, to find dedicated back end (or batch) scanning solutions – which are largely designed for archiving of documents.   These batch solutions can be very costly, and also result in significant delays in making scanned documents available for viewing in the EHR.

The end goal of any clinical scanning solution should be easy access to all patient information (including paper-based records) in the EHR.  Well, what if we could remove the bottlenecks in these current scanning processes by providing the ability to ad-hoc scan through shared resources like copiers/printers/scanners (also known as MFPs, or multi function peripherals) that are already on the network in high numbers?  This would make it quick and easy to scan documents at MFPs anywhere in the hospital into the EHR – and this in turn will give providers a more complete view of the patient’s medical history and translate to high quality care.

To see how eCopy ShareScan from Nuance can help make this a reality please watch this short flash video. Also, if you’re coming to HIMSS next month you can see a demo in our booth 3523.

Why does Nuance Document Imaging need a healthcare blog?

Anyone who has spent much time in a hospital or doctor’s office knows there is still a lot of paper processing that goes into the delivery of care.  Most people in healthcare view printing and paper processing as a necessary evil — as something that they can’t help but handle in the daily routines of patient admissions, care delivery, and billing and claims processing.  Unfortunately, many healthcare organizations don’t invest in the valuable print management, scanning, and document conversion tools available today because they believe EHR adoption will translate to a paperless hethcare environment in the very near future.

The truth is that healthcare organizations will have to continue to manage and process significant volumes of paper based patient information for many years due to sluggish adoption of EHRs at clinics, compounded by the inability of many disparate systems to communicate with each other.  Today’s healthcare organizations are under increasing pressure to improve operational efficiency, reduce the cost of care, ensure patient privacy, and meet regulatory pressures (HIPAA) – while at the same time improving the quality of care.  How these organizations handle paper can have a direct impact on how successful a hospital or clinic is in meeting these challenges  — and that is what this blog is all about…sharing ideas on how to improve paper processing in healthcare.

Why Nuance Communications?  Sure, chances are you already know Nuance through the use of our dictation and transcription products.  With almost 40% of US hospitals, over 450,000 individual providers, and over 10,000 healthcare institutions using these solutions already, Nuance is truly a market leader — and is transforming clinical care.  What many may not know is that Nuance Document Imaging solutions are in use at over 1,000 healthcare organizations today – including many of the most well respected hospitals in the US.  Our Document Imaging team truly understands the paper processing and print management needs of healthcare providers, and we’re passionate about making a difference in this way…

View a recent webinar we partnered on with HIMSS to learn more about how we can help your healthcare organization overcome these challenges – http://www.nuance.com/videoplayer/videoplayer.asp?p=/imaging/&w=640&h=390&n=MedTech_19Oct11&fileType=MP4

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