Intelligent Imaging
Scanning Only What You Need, Only When You Need It

records to digital format often provides significant value and improved productivity in the audit process to more than offset conversion costs.

A representative healthcare example would be the patient record for an existing patient that has scheduled follow-up service within the same healthcare system. Scanning patient charts for patients that present for follow-up service can be financially justified when a full backfile scan cannot. A full backfile conversion would include records of patients that may seek future services from the healthcare provider and other records for patients that will not seek subsequent services from the provider. The overall value of the full conversion is seriously diluted by the expense incurred in scanning records for patients that will not be generating future revenue for the healthcare provider.

Let’s now look at a couple of examples that show how the effective use of intelligent scanning can produce measurable business value.

Credit Card Disputes
A large entertainment company generates a significant portion of its revenue through millions of annual credit card purchases. As a highly visible market leader, the company realizes that it is a very appealing target for fraud and has decided to aggressively defend itself against all potentially fraudulent credit card activities. As part of this program, the company actively responds to all disputed credit transactions and provides credit card companies with supporting documentation to substantiate that the cardholders authorized credit card transactions for disputed claims.

The company evaluated both physical and digital options and found the options lacking in key areas. A purely physical solution was logistically unwieldy and a solution built upon a full digital conversion of all credit card transactions was unnecessarily costly and labor-intensive. When they evaluated intelligent scanning options, the company found a way to design a highly functional solution that met their strategic business needs while effectively managing the overall cost of the initiative.

The company now collects the physical credit card receipts and stores them by date, point-of-sale location and cashier ID. When a dispute is registered by a credit card company on behalf of a card member, the entertainment company identifies the envelope that contains the disputed receipt and record center staff identifies the disputed receipt and scans it to a content management system. The combination of a well-crafted physical storage system and a robust electronic delivery and storage solution helps this company protect its revenue stream and defend against fraud in a cost-effective manner.

Human Resource Records Management
After completing an acquisition of a regional restaurant brand, a major restaurant chain needed to consolidate HR records to facilitate consistent HR management practices. In some locations, records from the acquired chain were centralized. In other locations, HR records had been retained by the hiring restaurants.

The restaurant analyzed their business needs and determined that they needed to centrally manage all HR records to achieve their goal of uniform HR administration across their brands. After thorough evaluation, they realized that they had two distinct business issues—the management of active HR records and the management of inactive HR records—that required different business approaches. The business value required to justify the digital conversion of active records was easily identified. The value proposition for converting the inactive records was not as evident.

In the restaurant industry, staff turnover in excess of 100% annually is often the norm. Therefore, established restaurants typically have high numbers of inactive HR files. Restaurant management could not determine a compelling business reason to convert all inactive HR files. Therefore, they evaluated their intelligent scanning options.

In the vast majority of cases, there were no reasons to access inactive HR records. In a small percentage of cases, there were issues associated with employees that justified investing in the scanning of the inactive HR record. These business reasons included involvement in active litigation, disputed pay or benefit issues, medical issues and employment verification issues.

This company found that its most effective approach to the management of its HR folders involved scanning all active employee records and storing the information in a content management system. Because access to inactive HR records was not routinely required, the company decided to place inactive employee hardcopy records into off-site record storage and use image on demand to electronically deliver the records if they were needed.

Scan What You Need, When You Need It
Organizations that are looking for effective hybrid record strategies may find that their best options combine cost-effective physical storage with the digital conversion of selected high-value documents. This approach is feasible when there are discrete business events that elevate the value of certain records. These records can be identified, scanned and stored in a digital repository that provides easy and secure access to the information. The highest value solution is frequently structured around intelligent scanning—"Scan only what you need, only when you need it."