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You can opt for a paperless office

Eminance can manage all of your paper documents, including old medical records and paper-based information from outside sources.

User defined templates, lab reports and even your own referral letters can be integrated into the patient file giving you a complete picture of the record card.

It's one of the quickest and easiest ways to eliminate your paper filing system.

The fully integrated Document Management system also allows you to store digital photographs, automatically linked to a patient record and accessible at any time to authorised users. Even x-rays can be stored on file.

What document management is

Document management is the use of a computerised system to store, share, track and manage electronic files and documents. Paper is brought in by scanning it, usually with optical character recognition (OCR) so that the text on the page becomes searchable, and electronic files can be added directly. Each document is then indexed, which means it is given a unique identifier and descriptive details such as its type, date or owner, so that it can be found again.

A document management system does more than hold files. It stores each document and manages where it is kept, how long it is kept and when it is destroyed. Documents can be found by an identifier, by part of the details recorded with them, or by searching their contents. Version control keeps earlier versions available, access rights decide who may see or change each type of document, and an audit trail records what happened to a document and when.

How to put it in place in a practice

  1. Review how documents are handled today. Note what is created, where it is kept, who needs it and which of it is still on paper, and list the rules that apply, such as POPIA for patient information.
  2. Write a plan. Set the scope, objectives, budget and timeline, and work in phases, for example one type of document at a time. Projects that try to do too much too soon are the ones that run over budget or fail.
  3. Decide the structure. Agree the categories documents belong to, the details recorded with each one, and who may view or change each category.
  4. Clean up, then move the documents across. Remove duplicates and documents that are no longer needed, scan the paper, run a test batch first and compare the number of documents and their details with the originals, and keep a way back until the result is confirmed.
  5. Train the staff. Explain what is changing and why, and name one person in the practice who helps colleagues with questions.
  6. Set retention and security rules. Decide how long each type of document is kept and how it is destroyed. The health regulations under POPIA require security safeguards for paper and electronic health records and proper disposal, staff who handle health information to be bound by confidentiality, and any outside scanning or software provider to work under a contract with confidentiality terms.

How flexible Eminance is with documents

Documents reach Eminance in whichever way suits the practice. Patient files, medical aid cards and referral letters can be scanned to a folder and attached to the patient file. Scans can be dragged and dropped into the scan viewer as PNG, PDF, BMP or JPG files, and the Scans function can be opened from the Notes. Photographs and x-rays are stored on the record, radiology practices have electronic document and image scanning with DICOM imaging, and pathology labs can attach and upload external reports.

The documents themselves are yours to define. You can create as many templates as you need for referral letters, diagnostic reports, patient updates or anything else, merge patient information into them, and have the saved documents kept in the patient file. With the Eminance Signature Pad you create a once-off custom document in the built-in word processor or your own, and the patient’s signature becomes part of that document.

Eminance does not limit what you attach. Images, documents and any other type of file can be stored in the patient record or added to clinical notes, and you can search through all of your documents instantly. Access is set per person: different staff can be given different access privileges, and stored photographs are accessible to authorised users.

Output and access are flexible as well. Every printable document can be saved as a PDF or emailed straight from the program, and with Eminance Cloud the scans and saved documents can be viewed from any device with a browser, provided they were added using Eminance. Health Focus is honest that a practice cannot always go completely paperless right away. Reducing paper is a step in the right direction, so the practice can move at its own pace, and Eminance gets it almost there.