The ECM Channel

Healthcare and ECM

With HIMSS around the corner I thought it would be a good time to talk about ECM technologies in the healthcare vertical. If you are not familiar with HIMSS, it stands for Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society. This organization puts on a large event every year. This year it is in New Orleans. You usually are comforted that you are in the right location for HIMSS as soon as you make it to the baggage claim and have huge healthcare signs starring you in the face. Because the event is so large it covers a broad range of healthcare tools from portable x-ray machines to database back-ends. And of course there is ECM everywhere. In the area of scanning, ability to scan cards becomes important, and image dropout quality is a top concern. In the area of capture there is current buzz on how to handle the new HCFA and UB04 extraction. Technologies already exist on the market to accurately OCR HCFA, UB92 and a few now supporting UB04. Also the always challenging EOB capture has been solved by a few, and partially solved by many. For content management systems there are critical requirements around security, accessibility, and also support for input and output of the 835 file format. EDI is the keyword sounding digital information. Really for content management systems this is a challenging vertical that is dominated by several very large medical only companies. Healthcare also brings some other interesting content driven niches such as speech recognition, tablet PC notes, document codeing, and HUGE amounts of rich media such as x-ray images and video. There are specialized content systems just around managing this information. One aspect of healthcare that makes it a little easier is the fact that how information is stored is more or less static system. The healthcare vertical is one that understanding the technologies and lingo are critical to keeping and closing any deal. It is also critical to understand how all the pieces fit together, because your prospect will ask.

- Chris Riley, Artsyl Technologies, Inc.

Certifications Today and Tomorrow?

We appear to have a diverse group of service providers, resellers, integrators and software/hardware resellers subscribing to this forum. All of us appear to have similar interest and background in this wide ocean of ECM. As we all continue to learn and encourage our staff members to grow and increase their knowledge of the industry, there is one question that I would like to propose to the group. There are many areas or sources to expand knowledge with qualified industry certifications therefore, where does one begin/continue?

•  AIIM’s ERM/ECM Certification Programs
• ARMA Certification Programs
• CDIA+
• Certified Outsourcing Professional Program (IAOP)
• And many others...

I would be interested in hearing comments from members regarding the above mentioned certifications or others not mentioned.

Chris Loy, Scan Data Imaging,Inc

CALL FOR SPEAKERS at 32nd Annual Document Management Service Providers Executive Forum

November 8 - 10, 2007 at the Savannah Riverfront Marriott in Savannah, GA.

AIIM’s DMSPEF is the premier ECM Channel Community event for resellers, distributors, integrators, and service providers.  The goal is to provide an intensive peer to peer learning experience that is fun and thought stimulating. The primary focus is on best practices that can be implemented in Channel businesses.

This year’s event program will focus on 3 unique tracks:  Sales and Marketing, Production, and General Business.  Each session is approximately 1 hour in duration.  If you are a subject matter expert in one or more of these areas, we’d like to consider you as a session speaker to enhance our quality and robust educational program.

For full details, contact Peggy Winton at pwinton@aiim.org or 301-755-2605

PDF welcomes you with open arms

You may have read my below Microsoft XPS post talking about Microsoft’s planned killer for PDF, now I have even more news to add to the complexity. On Jan 29, 2007 Adobe released the full 1.7 PDF document format to AIIM as an open standard, read more here (http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS7542722606.html). One could speculate forever as to the reasons why. Is it retaliation for XPS and Office 2007? What will Microsoft do? As we have seen in the area of open source and commercial products they really can coexist and at times seem to support each other. Is Adobe planning something new? Or does it simply show their focus of building the Adobe LiveCycle products and other business focused applications. Some may be aware that Adobe has a business around the PDF format that allows developers to integrate into their own application. What becomes of Adobe’s Scan Libraries? This poses an interesting question and forces sellers of toolkits to create a business case around Software Development Toolkits vs. design from scratch applications. Usually this conversation always leads to Toolkits make a lot of sense. This is a good time to discuss!

- Chris Riley, Artsyl Technologies, Inc.