With more and more information collected digitally, the right content management tools can bridge the gaps to provide timely access and efficiency across the healthcare enterprise. Hospital departments can automate many of the steps to capture, index, and deliver documents, reducing manual processes.

The latest technology offers innovative tools and functionality, allowing you to do much more than simply scan or digitize documents. Intelligent Data Capture (IDC), offered as part of Quanum® Enterprise Content Solutions, offers advanced tools to transform your processes. IDC captures, analyzes, and extracts pertinent data, sending the document to the correct chart or folder in the appropriate application, often without user intervention.

IDC involves 5 key steps:

1. Healthcare organizations receive documents from a variety of sources, including bulk scanning, fax lines, watch folders, email attachments, and even mobile devices. After intake, the image is cleaned up, rotated as needed, and any blank pages are eliminated.
2. Classification. Once ingested, the documents need to be classified, separated, and metadata needs to be extracted. Document type is assigned.
3. Extraction is based on your unique business rules. At this stage, the IDC system performs database look-ups to validate patterns. Each document type can have their own extraction rules configured. A discharge summary, for example, could have rules that call for extraction of the MRN, ACCT, patient name, and date of birth. An invoice could have image rules that include the vendor name, address, invoice number, or date.
4. If the extraction does not meet a pre-set confidence level, the document will be presented to a user to validate and/or make corrections. Human intervention may be required due to low-quality scans, or even water or coffee stains that can make them hard to read. Validation enables the user to review and override entries, processing information quickly, accurately, and without paper-based extraction.
5. The last step is delivering the content to its appropriate place, such as Quanum Enterprise Content Solutions, your EHR, ERP (enterprise resource planning), or other systems. Role-based protocols and administrative settings can be put into place to ensure information is protected.

Download the guide, Healthcare Innovation with Content Capture, for more information about IDC and how hospitals and health systems can automate content management to collect and connect patient data.