Prescription for the Problem

The Client

Our client is one of the nation's leading providers of diagnostic testing, information and services. Their clients include patients, physicians, hospitals, health insurers, employers and government agencies. This particular business unit of their company consists of a number of employees working in departments including human resources, billing logistics, sales and client services. The office routinely generates volumes of paper that requires vast physical space to store, and a significant amount of time to research archived documents.

The Challenge

Our client was using copiers and printers from several different vendors. As a result, they lacked a single source of technical and customer support, and were forced to train staff to use many different systems in different departments. In addition, they were forced to house different pieces of equipment, each handling a single task-faxing, copying, printing or scanning. Our client resolved to find a single vendor to eliminate these problems and make its document management solution more effective and more cost and space-efficient.

After a five-month selection process involving five vendors, our recommendation-which included installing various multifunction devices (MFPs) that incorporate print, scan, fax and copy functions into one system-was awarded the contract for equipment and consulting services. Our solution required our customer to dedicate far less physical space to housing document management systems. In addition, employees could now manage documents from their desktops. They could print, fax or email, everything from invoices to patient records without leaving their desks, saving time and effort.

A second challenge involved implementing an accurate, fast and compact storage system for our client's vast number of documents. In health care, an infallible system of record keeping is critical. It is absolutely necessary that our customer be able to quickly find a patient record to send to a health plan or physician, an invoice to submit to the insurance company, an employee record for human resources or a sales receipt to send to accounts payable. One missing document could result in a delay in services or worse, a lawsuit. They needed to ensure that their employees could research and find any document in a matter of moments.

The Solution

Our solution included linking an eCabinet to a 2575-a 75 page-per-minute MFP-to capture all documents sent through the client's system. The eCabinet functions as a virtual file cabinet, automatically storing every document emailed, scanned or faxed into our clients system so they are accessible by any desktop on the network. Documents housed in the eCabinet can be searched and found via browser-like software-similar in design to Internet Explorer-using various fields including employee/ customer name, account number or keyword search. We felt this solution just made sense because it is roughly the size of a toaster oven and is far more economical to purchase and maintain than an additional server to house the many gigabytes of data necessary.

The Result

In the end, our solution was the right prescription for their printing problem. They were able to free up hundreds of square feet utilizing MFPs rather than single function devices. They increased their productivity and saved time by accessing and managing documents from the desktop. Last of all, they saved money on supplies such as toner and paper thanks to direct scan-to-fax, scan-to-email and scan-to-file features included in our MFPs.