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April 2001
To Speed Business... Capture Data At its Source
by Dan Bolita
We've all played "telephone." One person whispers a phrase to the nearest person, who whispers it to another and so on down the line. The last to hear the message then says what was heard - usually to the amusement of all, for the message is inevitably a jumbled mess of its original intent.
The analogy is often made in reference to data capture, for it so well illustrates the point that the farther from the original source information is gathered, the less accurate it is. Those involved in data collection have suffered through this information degradation for years.
In high-volume applications, paper documents are often shipped to a central location for scanning to consolidate costs. This works well for repetitive forms like product registrations and sweepstakes entries, but not for wide-ranging documents scattered in multiple locations. For example, invoices from suppliers are often sent to a branch office for approval. Likewise, loan documents and insurance policy applications are often routed through a local office or department before being sent elsewhere for approval and archiving. In these cases, it makes more sense to scan locally and transmit the data electronically.
To move data capture closer to its source, some businesses are choosing forms processing and data capture systems that offer a Web component. Others are relying on fax machines or capture devices installed at branch offices.
In an ideal world, every transaction would move to the Internet, and everyone would have high-bandwidth, wireless access so they could submit error-free data wherever a transaction might take place. In the real world, however, business processes demand a mix of approaches, including paper and electronic documents and forms.
Health Data Capture Begins at Home
Mid-Delta Home Health, Belzoni, Mississippi, a home health care agency, employs 125 visiting nurses and field agents. Some of the employees are using handheld wireless Clio computers, from MainStreet Networks, Morgon Hill, CA, to collect patient applications and information. The Clio PC Companion device, which operates using the Windows CE operating system, features a simple user interface and a long battery life, which makes it practical for long days away from an office.
Before the mobile system was introduced, at the start of each workday, nurses would drive to the Mid-Delta office or wait for a fax to find out their scheduled appointments. Once at the patient's home, they filled in paper forms by hand, a time-consuming process. The information then had to be entered into a computer back at Mid-Delta's office.
Kevin Shirley, Mid-Delta's director of management information systems, says that home health agencies are required by the government to gather certain information at each phase of patient care.
"Some forms can be very long," he says. "When we accept a new patient, we must gather information about their condition and demographics. Then we must complete another form when we transfer [the patient] to a hospital and yet another when we discharged our services." In addition to the health forms, nurses also must fill out administrative forms that help the agency manage services and billing.
After Mid-Delta decided to go mobile, it chose Pocket Form software, from JetForm, Ottawa, Ontario, as its tool for creating electronic versions of forms. Designed to run on any Pocket PC, the software is loaded on the handheld devices each nurse carries.
Pocket Form enables the nurses to use e-forms to collect data, complete administrative transactions (with a legally binding signature) and remotely initiate a workflow. With a touch of a stylus pen, the nurse can select a form, fill in the appropriate fields - with validations and automatic calculations, drop down menus and electronic signatures - and submit the data for processing.
"The Clio is in a class by itself," Shirley says. "It's like a notebook computer, [but] the most productive part is the touch screen."
The Mid-Delta nurses are not using the Clio as a completely wireless system; they fill in the forms with the mobile device disconnected from the network. The devices are then synchronized at the end of each day.
Eric Stevens, vice president of research and technology evangelism at JetForm, says that other Pocket Form users who have personal digital assistants are wireless. "In those cases, a browser-based Web system is used," says Stevens.
Stevens stresses that companies are increasingly putting more power at the point of data collection. "You gain intelligence on the device for database look-ups, calculations and the like," he says. "That way you don't require a server; when (the capability) is directly on a personal digital assistant, the person fills out a form on the devices, stores it locally and synchs with a workflow system."
An advantage of the electronic forms software is its ability to separate the presentation from the data. This independence allows the data to be displayed however the user chooses, which is especially important when extracting live information from the mobile device to a desktop application or report.
While the Pocket Form technology keeping data independent from the form itself is similar to XML, it is not XML-based. However, Stevens points out that JetForm's Web and server eProcess products are all based around XML. "The next generation of Pocket Form will be as well," he says. "XML is critical in everything we're doing."
Using a Clio handheld computer and electronic forms, nurses can organize their work and collect required data much more efficiently. Each morning, they call in to a mailbox and use a voice menu to select patients from a Mid-Delta database. The application then automatically synchronizes the information for each patient the nurses plan to visit. On arriving at a patient's home, the nurse can call up the appropriate forms and take advantage of the available information. Because many of the data fields simply require a yes or no response, the nurse can quickly tap responses to each question using a stylus pen.
Because the Pocket Form application has been programmed to perform validations, the form will not be accepted until the nurse has entered the information completely and correctly. Once the form is accepted, the screen allows the nurse to submit the form to the home office for processing by downloading the information at the end of the day. One of the recipients of the data is the State of Mississippi, which uses the data to reimburse Mid-Delta for patient visits.
About 20 nurses are now using the devices, with twice that many soon to be added. Mid-Delta has purchased enough devices for all its nurses, but a phased-in rollout has been planned to allow problems to be corrected before all the nurses are equipped.
"We're still tweaking the functionality," Shirley explains. "We're getting feedback like, 'This field needs to be longer,' and 'I had a problem when I tried to transmit.'"
As with any new technology, novice users had to get accustomed to the devices. "Some said, 'I don't want any part of it.' But when they used it and realized how quickly and easily they could finish their work, they said, 'What were we afraid of?'" Shirley says.
Mid-Delta hopes to dramatically reduce the use of paper forms - and the cost of processing and data entry. The system has already reduced courier service costs, travel and organizational time by nurses, data entry labor, potential errors and lost paper forms. In addition, the billing process is now faster because data moves quickly to Mid-Delta's billing software.
Because only part of the staff is equipped with the remote capture devices, Mid-Delta must maintain electronic- and paper-based systems, which is a challenge, Shirley says. "But that's part of the cost of transition," he notes.
Combined Capture Methods
While some business processes are suited to distributed capture methods and others to centralized processing, many organizations must do both. Healthaxis, of East Norriton, PA, needs both approaches in its business of providing technology solutions for health plan management. At its mailroom in Ephraim, UT, Healthaxis scans the paper forms sent in by clients. Other clients have their own imaging systems and send images electronically, using secure Internet connections, to save time and shipping costs.
Either way, HealthAxis' job is to manage the rest of the health insurance transaction - from rating to distribution and administration. The company's Application Solutions Group provides imaging and data capture services to health care payers such as insurance companies, self-insured businesses and administrators.
"Through technology and lower labor costs, we can capture data at a lower cost than our clients," says Todd Romanow, imaging project manager at Healthaxis.
Healthaxis uses a FormWare forms processing system, from Captiva Software, San Diego, to extract data from scanned images. Form images are copied to an optical jukebox and transmitted using TCP/IP to a low-cost data entry facility in Jamaica. Depending on volume, images are routed for manual data entry or automated optical character recognition and data-verification processes. Once the electronic data interchange is received, it is output to a Healthaxis claims payment system.
Romanow says that about half the company's clients perform their own scanning. In addition to performing data capture, Healthaxis also provides image storage and Internet retrieval services, giving customers two ways to access and verify data. "Our clients can view [data] from the claims payment system or they can [view images] through other software we have provided," Romanow says.
Fax as Distributed Scanner
While digital copiers and network attached scanning devices are replacing many fax-based systems (see "Data Capture Mode 'Copier Simple,'" below), many installations still use fax for distributed capture. Swiss Post exemplifies the use of this tried-and-true approach, with its network of more than 3,500 branch offices throughout Switzerland, The Swiss Post Postal Bank handles tax payments for local and regional authorities. Its clients submit more than 7,000 forms-based requests daily, which are faxed to one of Swiss Post Postal Bank's seven regional centers for initial processing.
The regional centers and a central facility in Bern are connected via a WAN. Attached to the WAN is the central image database. Each regional office has its own directory on the central database and a LAN on which its fax server and its scanners operate.
When a regional fax server receives a faxed form, which can originate from one of Swiss Post's branch offices or from an end customer, it creates a TIFF file and places it in that regional office's directory on the image database. The regional office also receives paper forms directly from end customers. The forms are scanned and placed in the same directory in the image database.
Alternately, branch employees may scan the forms and transmit images to a regional center electronically. The seven regional centers gather faxes and scanned images and then transmit them in batches to the Bern site for data capture and archiving.
Coordinating the process is an eFlow data capture system, from TIS (Top Image Systems), San Diego. While TIS typically handles higher-volume systems, the Swiss Post application is unusual in that it is so widely distributed. There are 3,900 fax machines and scanners in all, and the system has to compare the batch being processed with the log file. Along each step in the data capture process the batch is verified to ensure that it is correct, has not been corrupted and belongs to the appropriate regional office.
Swiss Post has opted against capturing at each of its regional offices. "If each regional site were to handle the data capture, the Swiss Post would need seven complete systems, including hardware and software," says Norm Kreger, vice president of marketing for TIS. "Since the daily volume at any of the regional centers is low, it is far more effective to install a single site in Bern."
The eFlow configuration in Bern includes modules for image input, processing and data completion. TIS' recognition technology extracts data from fax images, which are generally lower quality than scanned images. The processing modules employ multiple recognition engines together with a voting algorithm to improve accuracy, reduce data entry requirements and speed processing.
Kreger stresses the importance of the network's and the staff's ability to handle the volumes. "It is important to ensure that the network is not under-resourced and should certainly be planned with the view to increasing volumes," he says. "Training of all staff is also extremely important. An extensive training program for the regional sites and the central site was implemented."
Check 'Float' Time Reduced
Among those leading the way to distributed capture is the check-processing industry. In fact, many checks are now being captured right at the teller's window. The incentive is clear: Every moment of reduced "float" time translates to improved service and increased interest revenue.
Check processing at the branch level serves as an alternative to centralized item processing. One early adopter is First Bank, Ketchikan, AK, which is installing a complete distributed capture system. The bank's location begged for a distributed solution, as inclement weather, limited air service and the Alaskan terrain make it difficult to physically transfer checks to the bank's central processing center. The bank has purchased an Optima ImagePOD system, from Wausau Financial Systems, Mosinee, WI, along with 12 Unisys SourceNDP tabletop check scanners, which will be deployed at six branch offices around the state.
Once the checks are scanned with the Unisys scanners, courtesy amount recognition software is applied to electronically read the dollar amounts on each check. The images are then transmitted to a central data repository for processing - including verification against legal (written) amounts, repair and balancing. All this takes place (and payments can be cleared) long before the physical items actually reach the repository.
First Bank's distributed capture process is expected to go live in July. Transactions will be electronically processed and updated to the host system daily. Volumes are expected to reach 7,500 items per day.
With recent enhancements in capture technology (i.e. lower cost scanning, wireless input devices and architectures that allow transmittal over the Web), and with the increasing costs of physical delivery, many companies are reevaluating distributed capture. The savings in overnight shipping costs alone may justify the deployment of multiple remote capture systems.
Contributing editor Dan Bolita (danboli@midcoast.com) is editor of Today,
the journal of The Association for Work Process Improvement.
Data Capture Made 'Copier Simple'
Bax Global, Irvine, CA, a $2.1 billion transportation and supply
chain management company, is automating the collection and processing of
its shipping data with Digital Sender units in its 90 remote
offices.
The Digital Sender, from Hewlett-Packard, Palo Alto, CA, connects
directly to a network, allowing documents to be sent without the expense
or administration of a dedicated PC. Paper documents can be sent using
the HP unit, which has its own assigned Internet provider address, and
pushes PDF, TIF or JPG images to a centralized server.
Documents arrive in near-original quality, and just like any e-mail
message, documents can be printed, stored or forwarded. The system is
much less expensive than sending faxes or using courier services.
Mark Fisher, manager of imaging operations for BAX Global, says that
previously, data entry operators manually entered information from
shipping forms, which was slow and added costs. Traditionally, airbills
were entered nightly, which resulted in a full day's delay in providing
shipping information to customers. Further, manual keying was subject to
entry errors.
In addition to HP's Digital Senders for the capture, BAX is using
Teleform, from Cardiff, Vista, CA, to collect form data. With the
distributed solution, airbills can now be sent from the remote offices
to a regional processing center. Teleform collects these incoming forms
and converts them into digital information.
Data is verified and cleaned as needed, and then output to a FileNet
Panagon system, making the data accessible to the remote offices.
BAX Global anticipates that the distributed system will speed up the
data collection process for its more than 15,000 airbills per day, while
reducing manual data entry for airbill indexing by 95 percent.
Fisher says that the greatest benefit has been a reduction in the
number of hours required to process imaged documents. Training wasn't an
issue in introducing offices to the new technology. The Digital Sender
compares to a fax machine for ease of use. "Our stations were already
trained, and we used a phased train-the-trainer approach, "Fisher
says.
The Digital Sender compresses files to minimize the impact on a
network, so there are no bandwidth problems taxing the system, says
Fisher. "We are currently operating on only half a T1 line," he
explains. However, BAX Global is mindful of the impact of color images,
and these documents receive special treatment.
"Color documents can be an issue, because the digital scanners cannot
be adjusted for contrast," Fisher says. "However, our field stations
have been trained to know what needs to be photocopied before
scanning."
However advanced the technology, though, there's no getting away from
paper. Government regulations require that the original paper document
be retained, says Fisher.
-D.B.
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