Document Scanning: Why Bother If You Can’t Find It In 30 Seconds?

Companies large and small look to document scanning and document management solutions to help their organizations run more effectively. Less time spent searching means more time spent on the tasks that enhance your company’s bottom line, and if you can’t find what you need quickly, employees will spend more time duplicating work that’s already done – when they should be doing better work with the information at hand ( if it were readily accessible). Not really the goal of an effective document scanning and subsequent document initiative, is it?

We believe that every document in a company’s organization should be able to be found in 30 seconds or less. This is what we work with our customers to achieve throughout the scanning and management processes. So what does your organization need to know before you begin a document scanning initiative?

• Before You Scan – Think about your processes. When you need a certain type of document, do you think of it in terms of patient name? Author? Recipient? Date? Type of document? Understanding how you and the people in your organization think when you search for things is essential. It helps your document scanning firm build the simplest indexing method for your purposes possible.
• Indexing and Naming – This is how your document scanning company will name your files. Think SIMPLE. The fewer search terms you have for finding a document (date/name/subject VS date/name/subject/physician/department/specialty), the faster you’ll be able to locate records.
• Be Nimble – Our goal with clients is to create naming and indexing systems that are nimble. After a scanning has been performed, it occasionally occurs that the clients need to change how they search for their documents. If you build an indexing system that’s nimble, changing the search terms is a snap. Stay simple, stay nimble.

Let’s face it: people will only spend so much time searching for something before they give up. If you’re going to the effort and expense of engaging in a document scanning and subsequent document management solution, that money goes to waste if you don’t have a company that will not only guide you through the process but ensure that your results are USEABLE. Unstructured content doesn’t do anyone any good whatsoever. If you can’t find it in 30 seconds, we haven’t done our job – and it’s a job we’ll do until you and your organization are satisfied and can enjoy click click FOUND.

Posted by: John Cushman on March 31st, 2010 // View Comments
Posted in: Document Imaging, Document Management and Storage
Tags: Document Imaging, Document Management, Document Scanning
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