Case Study

Upgrade scanning, increase productivity

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“No one wants to hear about adding more employees,” says Lisa Coleman, MHA, RHIA,

director, Centralized Scanning, Memorial Hermann Healthcare System (MHHS).

That created a challenge when MHHS decided several years ago to centralize its scanning

operation – which had been spread across MHHS’ 11 hospitals in the Houston, Texas, area

– and add inpatient records to the documents it was scanning – all while adhering to a

strict 24-hour turnaround time for scanning patient records. By centralizing its scanning

operations, MHHS hoped to achieve:

• Centralized management

• Standardized processes and cross coverage

• Reduced manual intervention

• Decreased operating costs

• Improved customer service

• Increased productivity

• Complete Electronic Medical Record (EMR) processes (add inpatient records)

• Adherence with MHHS’ 24 hour turnaround deadline

• Secure record access (role-based, audit trail)

In 2002, MHHS implemented a Sovera health information management (HIM) system

to ensure compliance with HIPAA regulations and establish a centralized scanning

infrastructure. At this time, scanning was decentralized across MHHS’ hospital network.

In 2006, MHHS made the decision to add inpatient records to its scanning program.

Scanning inpatient records would have a positive impact on the hospital’s migration to

EMRs, Coleman said. But it also posed a problem in terms of significantly higher document

volumes. “To meet our deadlines using our existing scanning infrastructure would have

required at least three additional mid-volume scanners and 10 full-time equivalents,”

Coleman said.

As a solution, CGI Group presented the ImageTrac scanners from Birmingham, AL-based

ibml. CGI Group arranged a site visit of a nearby ibml user – EDCO – to see firsthand the

hardware’s capabilities and observe the processes the user put in place to streamline the

document scanning workflow. “We were surprised at how different the ibml scanners were

from our own; it was more like an assembly line,” she said.

MHHS decided to purchase two ibml ImageTrac document scanners. The scanners were integrated

with MHHS’ Datacap Taskmaster software to take out some of the manual intervention.

“The more manual tasks you have, the more prone you are to have errors,” Coleman

emphasized.

During implementation, CGI Group and ibml provided MHHS employees with a two-week

course of hands-on training. Throughout implementation and training, MHHS continued

to operate its legacy scanning infrastructure. “We wanted to run the systems in parallel

before making the switch.”

With the new workflow, records are picked up and reconciled at the facility where they

originated. Once reconciled, records are transported to the hospital’s centralized scanning

facility where employees check them in and perform a quality check to ensure all of the

records are accounted for. Batches then are delivered to a scanning station where a

scanner operator images the document batches. At this time, key data is extracted from

a barcode, documents are converted to digital images, and the images are sent to the

hospital’s Datacap Taskmaster software solution.

By centralizing its scanning operations, Coleman said MHHS has achieved several benefits:

• Much faster document throughput with the ImageTrac scanners

• No need to hire additional staff

• Shifted staff from scanning to capture functions

• Records are scanned within 8 hours of receipt

• Physicians and medical staff now have instant access to records

The bottom line: MHHS achieved full payback in about 18 months.