The Datamax Thinking Blog

Educating, collaborating, and sparking ideas for maximizing the technology that matters.


Cloud Document Management vs. On-Premise: 8 Factors You Must Consider

In the spirit of cloud vs on-premise engagements, here is a starting point for deciding your best route for harnessing the power of a Document Management System.

Consider documents as the building blocks of everyday business workflow. Now imagine building a Lego set. Instead of having blocks packaged into groups and a list of instructions, you empty the bags and scatter the 500 or so pieces across your living room floor.

Topics: Document Management Document Workflow Document Security Cloud Content Management Cloud Technology

Face the Fax: Accelerate & Secure Transmission of Healthcare Documents

With growing compliance pressures, and as facilities grapple with ways to be more productive, healthcare organizations need to easily and efficiently send authenticated documents without disrupting their existing workflow processes.

First, a few fax facts.

  • The first ever transmission of an image over a wire was performed by Alexander Bain on an experimental fax machine in 1843.
  • A survey done by IDG research found that cloud faxing is used for 31% of total faxing activity today among companies that have implemented the method, with that number expected to increase to 71% over the next three years.
  • According to IDC’s fax survey, 90% of respondents indicated either that their organization had already integrated fax with other technologies/applications or were evaluating options to do so.
Topics: Healthcare Solutions Document Management Fax

Document Workflow: 3 Ways to Blaze a Better Paper Trail

How navigable is your paper trail right now? How well is it aligned with your overall business objectives? It may be time to identify both current inefficiencies and explore cost-effective, fully secure practices moving forward.

Have you ever followed your own paper trail? Where does it lead you?

Regardless of the size of your organization – a small work group up to a large enterprise - it has a unique paper trail based on your existing technology and individual departmental practices. Your routine document workflow, files and paper moving from desk to desk both manually and digitally, dictate the route of your trail. Your path can often be cluttered by manual, paper based processing, damaged by inadequate security measures or completely overgrown from simple negligence.

Topics: Document Management Document Workflow Document Security

Document Management Agility: Five Workflow Scenarios to Consider

The central objective of utilizing EDM is to make your overall business processes more efficient, and specifically to accelerate and properly secure the way you move documents across your office. 

In the months before they toe the starting line, many runners and endurance athletes mistakenly obsess over one attribute through their training plan - speed. However, to maintain top efficiency in their movements and to keep these movements sharp as possible, agility - a combination of speed, control and coordination – is a critical part of everyday training.

Agility is also the key, big picture component to proficient document workflow. It's not just how fast you operate - it's how coordinated and efficient those efforts are.

Topics: Productivity Tips and Tools Document Management Document Workflow

Four Things You Should Know About HIPAA Compliance

Complying with HIPAA is impossible if you don't know where to start. These four business tips will help you get started AND help your business.

With so many rules and acronyms, maintaining a HIPAA-compliant medical office can be a daunting task. Here’s a high-level recap so you can keep your eye on patient care. 

Topics: Security Digital Copiers Digital Security Healthcare Solutions Privacy Document Management Network Management Document Security Cloud Cybersecurity

The Document Management Decision — The Numbers That Say Just Do It

The average office spends $25,000 to fill a four-drawer file cabinet and $2,000 annually to maintain it.¹

It's no wonder that organizations are more active than ever in pursuing solutions to streamline traditional methods of managing documents. Without the assistance of document management software, organizing documents, emails, scans, electronic faxes, graphics, Internet content, etc., is frequently a manual process that is very time intensive. Essentially, a dated management style that just doesn't work in today's digital, fast-paced office environment. Add in the burden of “Big Data”and the challenge of information management is bigger than ever.

Topics: Document Management Document Workflow

How to Restrict Access to Protected Health Information on Paper to Maintain HIPAA Compliance

You want to help patients and not put them at risk from a data breach. Keep them and HIPAA happy by following these straightforward tips to handle your paper-protected health information.

You spend a lot of time staying on top of your electronic health records, but you can't ignore the file cabinets filled with patient information on paper. A completely paperless operation is a dream for many health companies. Until you can achieve that digital goal, you need an effective way to restrict access to your hard copies.

Topics: Healthcare Solutions Document Management

Are Paper Patient Files Slowing Down Your Doctor's Office?

Every improvement you make in office organization gives doctors and patients more time to communicate.

The call on hold blinks on the other line. As you cradle the phone on your shoulder, you talk calmly to a supplier about another late shipment of office supplies. Soon you'll be late for a staff meeting.

It's all you can do to keep your doctor's or medical office running smoothly. It's not like other businesses -- your customers are patients who are healing and have concerns about their condition. Doctors, nurses, and other staff don't want any delays in delivering care due to back-office problems. Every improvement you make in office organization gives doctors and patients more time to communicate.

Topics: Healthcare Solutions Document Management

"What's In It For You" When You Improve Business Processes

Process automation won't eliminate all tasks you have throughout the day, but you can gain enough time that you get to leave work on time and enjoy your night.

You're the glue that keeps the office running smoothly. When you do your job right, it might appear like you're not doing anything at all, which couldn't be further from the truth. Whether you're researching the latest technology improvements or maintaining a collaborative environment, you're putting in a lot of hard work.

Process improvements cover everything from scanning your paperwork with digital copiers to enter them into a document management system to streamlining current workflows. They benefit the business in many ways and find a way to go from the beginning to end in the most efficient way possible. But what do they do for YOU?

Topics: Productivity Tips and Tools Document Management Creating Raving Fans

HIPAA and Cloud Compliance in Healthcare

Cloud-based document management solutions can make you a better care provider, as long as you do your homework.

As a healthcare office manager, you have distinct goals, not the least of which is to make sure that staff can access medical records at a moment's notice, as this can sometimes make the difference between life and death. To address this, you might feel that the cloud is the tool to use.

However, you also have to protect patients' medical information. The cloud has experienced several newsworthy failures to protect personal information lately, and you don't want your patients' records to be newsworthy, too. Considering your need to protect patient privacy and comply with HIPAA regulations, you might even want to avoid using the cloud altogether because it's too big a risk.

Topics: Healthcare Solutions Document Management