“During times of economic turmoil, organizations do one of two things: retreat, or invest in their future success,” said Wacker. “For the Laserfiche community, the recession has inspired ingenuity and creativity in their use of agile ECM. We’re delighted by their achievements and honored they made the effort to attend this event even in the face of budget cuts, travel restrictions and unpredictable winter weather.”

The Conference, held at the Hilton LAX in Los Angeles through January 12, features more than 150 educational sessions on everything from capture strategies to advanced security to integrating Laserfiche with Microsoft SharePoint.

HP is the Premier sponsor for the event, and Infolinx is the nametag sponsor. Exhibitors include Bolt Document Management, Cambridge Connections, Canon, CAPSYS, Cerenade, DocuNav Solutions, Epson, EzeScan, FileTek, Fujitsu, LincWare, Millennial Vision, Novusolutions, Objectif Lune, Panasonic, Plustek and United Micro Data.

For video highlights from the Conference, visit http://www.laserfiche.com/2011videohighlights/

About Laserfiche
Since 1987, Laserfiche® has used its Run Smarter® philosophy to create simple and elegant enterprise content management (ECM) solutions. More than 30,000 organizations worldwide use Laserfiche software to streamline document, records and business process management.

The Laserfiche ECM system is designed to give IT managers central control over their information infrastructure, including standards, security and auditing, while still offering business units the flexibility to respond quickly to changing conditions.

Laserfiche distributes its software through a worldwide network of value-added resellers (VARs), who tailor solutions to clients’ individual needs. The Laserfiche VAR program has received the Five-Star Rating from Computer Reseller News/VARBusiness magazine.

Laserfiche is a registered trademark of Compulink Management Center, Inc.

“2009 was a watershed year that separated the truly great companies from the rest of the pack,” said Wacker. “Laserfiche is committed to helping great companies succeed, and we worked relentlessly throughout 2009 to make our agile ECM system the clear winner for the new decade.”

Despite the economic downturn and heightened security for air travel, end user attendance at the Conference is up 54% over last year. A healthy number of industry analysts, consultants, partners, journalists and resellers are also in attendance.

The Conference, held at the Hilton LAX in Los Angeles through January 13, features more than 150 sessions on everything from integrating Laserfiche with SharePoint to agile project management to implementing Laserfiche in a multinational environment.

HP and Fujitsu are the Premier and Gold sponsors for the event; Infolinx is the nametag sponsor. Exhibitors include HP, Fujitsu, Infolinx, LincWare, FileTek, NovusAGENDA, Canon, Extract Systems, Cambridge Connections, Plustek, United Micro Data/Affinity, Peladon Software and GEI WideFormat.

For video highlights from the Conference, visit http://www.laserfiche.com/2010.

About Laserfiche
Laserfiche® creates simple and elegant enterprise content management (ECM) solutions that help organizations run smarter. Since 1987, more than 28,000 organizations worldwide have used Laserfiche software to streamline document, records and business process management.

The Laserfiche ECM system is designed to give IT managers central control over their information infrastructure, including standards, security and auditing, while still offering business units the flexibility to respond quickly to changing conditions. The Laserfiche product suite is built upon Microsoft® technologies to simplify system administration, supports Microsoft SQL and Oracle® platforms and features a seamless integration with Microsoft Office® applications and a two-way integration with SharePoint®.

Laserfiche distributes its software through a worldwide network of value-added resellers (VARs), who tailor solutions to clients’ individual needs. The Laserfiche VAR program has received the Five-Star rating from Computer Reseller News/VARBusiness magazine.

Laserfiche is a registered trademark of Compulink Management Center, Inc.

Such was certainly the case for Dr. Brian Hanson’s gastroenterology (GI) practice in Ukiah, CA. One of just two GI doctors within a 90-mile radius in rural northern California, Hanson at times may see more than 200 patients a month. He’s a member of several boards and committees, and his practice is affiliated with three different hospitals, two ambulatory surgery centers and two rural healthcare clinics which serve patients in both Mendocino and Lake Counties.

On any given day, Hanson might be found performing outpatient endoscopic procedures, providing acute inpatient gastroenterology services, or seeing patients for consultations at one of the outlying rural health clinics or in his private office. His practice offers patient education programs, educational material, hospital consultations, 24-hour coverage in case of emergency, multiple offices located near local hospitals, and billing.

Stacie Sturges, Hanson’s practice manager, has worked for the gastroenterologist since before he started his own office in 2004. “Dr. Hanson does everything in his power to put his patients first,” Sturges explains, “but staying on top of such a huge volume of paperwork made everything more complicated. Having accurate, up-to-date information at our fingertips is essential, and paper-based records just weren’t getting the job done.

“Before Laserfiche, a simple phone call from a patient triggered a lot of extra work for the office staff,” she adds. “Hunting around for the patient’s paper chart, paging through it to find the relevant information, noting the phone call in the record and then presenting everything to the doctor. It took a lot of time.”

The practice had considered implementing a traditional electronic medical records (EMR) system, but, as Sturges says, “EMR is so complicated. Everyone knows that.”

Indeed, traditional EMR has a number of serious drawbacks, including:

• Prohibitive costs.
• Overly involved requirements for customization.
• Complicated changes to the existing clinical workflow.

The Natural Approach to EMR

Wary of disrupting patient care in service of complex EMR technology, Sturges discovered a more natural solution to the practice’s information management challenges one day while reading Healthcare IT News: “I saw an ad for ‘document management’ and I knew that this was what we desperately needed.”

Best-in-class content management software—with its ability to digitize, organize and store content from across the entire practice—is being adopted by many small medical offices that want an affordable and easy-to-use alternative to traditional EMR. These “hybrid” solutions (so named because they combine content management with other applications such as practice management and e-prescribe) provide a simple, centralized and secure means of managing patient records without complicating the clinical workflow.

“Most doctors’ offices like ours do not have an IT expert in their back pocket,” explains Sturges. “The fact that Laserfiche is so user friendly made it very appealing to us.”

In December 2008, Hanson’s practice purchased and installed the Laserfiche Avante suite from Laserfiche reseller AMI – The Paperless Company. In less than one week, AMI had installed the software and hardware and trained Hanson’s staff. According to Sturges, Hanson’s practice is using Laserfiche to “make our own EMR.”

In terms of the installation process, “The guys at AMI were awesome,” says Sturges. “They listened to what we had to say and organized our solution in a fashion that matched the way we wanted to work. Most importantly, our transition to a paperless office was effortless! The install was completely smooth.”

Today, with Laserfiche and three Fujitsu FI 6140 scanners in place, the office is running like a well-oiled machine. Hanson carries his Fujitsu Tablet PC wherever he goes so that he has real-time access to patient information. This enables him to immediately respond to issues that need attention instead of waiting to get back to the office and dealing with a pile of paper charts.

Technology that Adapts to the Practice

The more closely a software solution mirrors the day-to-day realities of a practice’s working methods, the more likely it is to deliver value. Sturges appreciates the flexibility of the Laserfiche solution, stating, “This isn’t one of those cookie cutter systems that you have to conform to. Most doctors like making their own decisions, and they don’t like being told what to do. Laserfiche allows them to decide how they want to work.”

Hanson’s practice has configured Laserfiche to handle a number of patient-related tasks, including:

• Storing scanned records. The folder structure in the Laserfiche repository is organized by patient. Each patient has a folder that contains subfolders for test results, surgical procedures, X-ray information and so forth. This keeps the information organized and easily accessible by authorized employees.
• Automatically routing information. Using Laserfiche Workflow, test results and other important patient updates are automatically sent to Dr. Hanson as soon as they are entered into the system. This speeds Hanson’s response to patients and saves staff time.
• Rapidly processing records. Hanson’s office has customized the document templates in Laserfiche Quick Fields by adding a status field that enables staff to quickly and easily identify urgent messages, call backs and real-time progress notes. In addition, automatic information capture and indexing cuts down on manual data entry and gets information into the system swiftly.
• Facilitating compliance. Laserfiche Audit Trail ensures information security and simplifies regulatory compliance. Hanson’s practice uses it to stay HIPAA-compliant by following the flow of information, keeping track of changes and noting what needs to be done next.

To Sturges, this is a clear-cut case of technology adapting to the flow of the practice, rather than the other way around. “We don’t need all the bells and whistles associated with traditional EMR,” she says. “Laserfiche has been a ‘meaningful use’ solution for us because it gives us exactly what we need to manage our office and improve patient care.”

Passing the Benefits Along to Patients

For Hanson’s practice, Laserfiche has decreased the costs associated with storing and handling paper records, ensured the safety and accessibility of those records, and increased the efficiency of the practice’s day-to-day operations and employees. Some of the chief benefits of the system include:

• Comprehensive search functionality allows staff to locate records within seconds.
• Remote access to the Laserfiche repository over a secure private network (VPN) gives Dr. Hanson the ability to instantly locate and amend records without pulling other staff members away from their jobs—even when he’s not in the office.
• Multiple people can access the same digital record at the same time.
• No electronic records ever get lost.

All of these benefits, however, would be meaningless if they didn’t ultimately enhance the quality of patient care.

“Providing top-quality care is of the utmost importance to Dr. Hanson,” says Sturges. “We’re always asking ourselves, ‘How can we better serve this patient?’ Many of them are facing really difficult decisions regarding their healthcare. They deserve answers, and they deserve them quickly. With Laserfiche, we coordinate care much faster because patient information is so much easier to find.”

Each quarter the Innovative Leadership Award is given to independent software vendors (ISVs) that successfully leverage Fujitsu imaging products to optimize business processes and improve customers’ bottom line results.

Laserfiche value-added reseller and consultant, Nancy Mathes of Paper-Lite, worked with Daviess County employees to create an electronic work process in Laserfiche that mirrors their processes with paper case files. Using Fujitsu fi-6130 scanners, staff scans documents directly into the Laserfiche content management repository, which dynamically creates case folders and places key identifying data such as case numbers and defendant names into template fields. At the end of the day, all scanned data is ready for full-text or template-field search and retrieval.

Doug Rudolph, VP, Product Management and Business Development, Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Inc. (left) and Robert Esquivel, Jr., CDIA+, ISV Business Development Manager, Western Region Fujitsu Imaging Products Group (right) present Chris Wacker, Laserfiche Senior Vice President Business Development (center) with Fujitsu’s Independent Software Vendor Innovative Award.

Once the office is ready to implement the integrated BPM functionality that is included with the Laserfiche Avante™ solution, Mathes plans to write a workflow rule that enables attorneys to automatically send necessary filing instructions and/or case files to support staff for additional processing.

“We designed the template to enable workflow automation in the future,” Mathes said. “We planned our implementation to do what we needed up front and to make things easier as we move forward.”

“Fujitsu is pleased to present the Innovative Leadership Award to Laserfiche,” said Doug Rudolph, Vice President, Product Management and Business Development, Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Inc. “At Fujitsu, we look for companies that make significant contributions to content management solutions and help streamline business processes. With Avante, Laserfiche has created a BPM solution that impacts the bottom line for various sectors.”

“We’re excited that Daviess County has seen great success using Laserfiche together with world-class Fujitsu scanners,” said Chris Wacker, Laserfiche Senior Vice President of Business Development. “We’re thrilled that Fujitsu has presented Laserfiche with this award, and we appreciate the company’s ongoing commitment to our partnership.”

About Fujitsu
Fujitsu is a leading provider of IT-based business solutions for the global marketplace. With approximately 175,000 employees supporting customers in 70 countries, Fujitsu combines a worldwide corps of systems and services experts with highly reliable computing and communications products and advanced microelectronics to deliver added value to customers. Headquartered in Tokyo, Fujitsu Limited (TSE:6702) reported consolidated revenues of 4.6 trillion yen (US$47 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2009. For more information, please see: www.fujitsu.com.

About Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Inc.
Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Inc. is an established leader in the Document Imaging industry, delivering innovative scanning solutions and services that enable our customers to solve critical business productivity issues and streamline operations. We provide cutting-edge document capture solutions for business and personal environments, backed by a comprehensive portfolio of service and support programs. For more information about Fujitsu Document Imaging solutions and services, visit http://us.fujitsu.com/fcpa or call us at 800-626-4686.

About Laserfiche
Laserfiche® creates simple and elegant enterprise content management (ECM) solutions that help organizations run smarter. Since 1987, more than 27,000 organizations worldwide—including federal, state, and local government agencies and Fortune 1000 companies—have used Laserfiche software to streamline document, records and business process management.

The Laserfiche ECM system is designed to give IT managers central control over their information infrastructure, including standards, security and auditing, while still offering business units the flexibility to respond quickly to changing conditions. The Laserfiche product suite is built on top of Microsoft® technologies to simplify system administration, supports Microsoft SQL and Oracle® platforms and features a seamless integration with Microsoft Office® applications and a two-way integration with SharePoint®.

Laserfiche distributes its software through a worldwide network of value-added resellers (VARs), who tailor solutions to clients’ individual needs. The Laserfiche VAR program has received the Five-Star Rating from Computer Reseller News/VARBusiness magazine.

Laserfiche is a registered trademark of Compulink Management Center, Inc.

Copyright 2009 Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Inc. All rights reserved. Fujitsu and the Fujitsu logo are registered trademarks and The Possibilities are Infinite is a trademark of Fujitsu Ltd. Statements herein are based on normal operating conditions and are not intended to create any implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Inc. reserves the right to modify at any time without notice these statements, our services, pricing, products, and their warranty and performance specifications.

Thanks to Prosecuting Attorney G. Byron Overton, they’re getting it. Overton and his staff are working with Laserfiche reseller Nancy Mathes of Paper-Lite to scan and store files electronically in Laserfiche. “We’re not going paperless,” Overton says. “We’re going file-less.”

Daviess County’s move to paperless file management began when Overton attended the National District Attorneys Association (NDAA) annual conference, where he heard Laserfiche Luminary Jeff Sauter speak about his paperless prosecutor’s office in Eaton County, MI. Sauter, a well-known speaker at industry events, is known to host on-site visits from other prosecutors interested in his Laserfiche paperless file management system.

“I talk about Laserfiche whenever I can,” Sauter says. “When I present at continuing education events, I show screenshots of our Laserfiche repository and explain our various work processes. I also like to show photos of the ‘before’ and ‘after’ in our office. Instead of six file cabinets, we now only need a single drawer – and it doesn’t even hold paper! We use it to hold evidence CDs. The fact that we haven’t lost a single file in over three years is earth-shattering to other prosecutors.”

At the event Overton attended, Sauter asked attendees to guess how much time prosecutors’ staff spent working with case files. According to Overton, he and other attendees guessed 25 to 30 percent of their workdays. Sauter replied if they actually asked staff, they’d find it was likely closer to 50 percent.

Once Overton thought about it, he realized Sauter was right. “When we need older files, our administrative assistants have to physically retrieve them,” Overton says. “Somebody has to trek down there, find the file, get the file out and bring it back down here. It takes a lot of time, and it happens weekly.”

After Sauter’s presentation, Overton chose a Laserfiche Avante system for the prosecutor’s office. Although he knew it would take time to get up and running, he had confidence the payoff would be worth it. “We’re just running out of room,” he says. “Laserfiche is going to save us time, and eventually, save us money.”

Staff agree. “There’s no more looking for files,” says Chief Deputy Prosecutor Dan Murrie. “Everyone can work on the same file at the same time.”

The prosecutor’s office has six administrative assistants, each of whom has a Fujitsu fi-6130 scanner at their desk and scan documents into Laserfiche as they arrive. Mathes also worked with staff to create an electronic work process in Laserfiche that mirrors what they were used to doing with paper case files. The child-support side of the prosecutor’s office, with one attorney and four administrative assistants, is following the same process as the criminal side, as is civil cases.

When a case file arrives, staff create a standard document in Microsoft Word that lists necessary information such as the defendant’s name, case number and any other pertinent information. Using Laserfiche’s “Send To” feature, the Word document is sent to Laserfiche and a case file in Laserfiche is dynamically created. The case number and defendant’s information is automatically filled in the file’s template fields, and the template is attached to the original Word document. Staff then open the folder in Laserfiche and scan and enter all case documentation by document type, where a drop down list of document types speeds data entry. And at the end of the day, all scanned documents are full-text indexed for instant search and retrieval.

This system is just as easy for attorneys to navigate as it is for support staff. Attorneys are able to open the Word document and update their notes, just like they used to write on the front of a file folder—except instead of searching around the office for a file folder, they access documents right from their desktop computers. When they’re done entering notes, they simply close the Word document and their changes are automatically added to the case file stored in Laserfiche.

To guarantee disaster recovery, files are backed up twice at the courthouse and a third time off-site. “Even in the highly unlikely event all three back-ups fail, our files are largely made up of other agencies’ files, so we could reconstruct them if we needed to,” Overton says. And the original documents needed for trial exhibits—such as blood alcohol test results, documents from other counties and states and other supporting evidence—fit in one filing cabinet.

“It’s definitely a work in progress, but it’s one of those things where you have to realize that the problem didn’t occur overnight, and the solution won’t either,” says Mathes. “Byron and his staff have been great, hanging in there and sticking with it, knowing that the end result will be worth the effort.

“You can’t pick a perfect time to get started, you just have to get started,” she adds. “There’s no perfect conditions. With this office, they were just out of room, and that’s why they had to get started. But they have confidence that it will ultimately be successful, and it will pay off in greater efficiency.”

While the prosecutor’s office is still in the midst of deploying their Laserfiche solution, they still haven’t neglected to plan for the future. Overton says the attorneys in his office will eventually get laptops with “access to all files all the time.” And once the office is ready to implement the integrated business process management functionality that is included with the Avante system, Mathes will write a workflow rule that enables attorneys to automatically send necessary filing instructions and/or case files to support staff for additional processing. “We designed the template to enable Workflow automation in the future,” she says. “We were able to sit down, plan our implementation and do what we needed up front to make things easier as we move ahead.”

Once the office finishes scanning this year’s files, they plan to start on older files in storage, a process that will likely be handled by interns. “It’s a never-ending process,” Overton says. “We need more room. The courthouse has limited space. Everybody needs more room.”

And while Overton knows his office’s Laserfiche deployment is still unfolding, he has faith in its eventual outcome. “The conversion phase is in process,” he says. “It’s a difficult process, but it will ultimately prove to be worthwhile.”