Information is often called the lifeblood of a healthcare practice and the ability to gather, process, analyze and protect data, can be the determinant factor between its success and failure. Today, handwritten documentation still serves as one of the most fundamental and reliable ways of capturing patient information. These handwritten patient eligibility forms or medical record documents are often transcribed and manually entered into a database or patient information system in order to begin most healthcare business processes. In addition, these paper forms are usually scanned in order to render them in a digital format. This is an arduous and time consuming process, prone to human error and unnecessary redundancies. Many solution providers continue to ask the question: "How can we streamline day-to-day healthcare paperwork processes without disrupting the simplicity of using ordinary pen and paper?"

D-PAS utilizes digital pen & paper to capture handwritten information, transfer it into a digital form and utilize the data to initiate workflows in a secure environment. Patients medical history and patient records are securely used to initiate necessary workflows digitally, securely and much more efficiently, empowering the healthcare business process.

D-PAS is a product of Patient Access Solutions, Inc., a technology solutions provider focused on quality and service within the healthcare community, with an overall focus of using innovative and secure technology to facilitate their client’s needs.

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DPAS Digital Pen & Paper Solution vs. Tablet Computing

April 2008
Comparison of Competing Technologies
The Mobile Worker

Today most organizations are looking for ways to enhance and improve paper based business processes. Typically, companies look to achieve these goals with the use of advanced technology such as tablet or notebook computers. These types of tools allow workers to enter information directly into systems and eliminate the need for completing paper based forms and later putting them through a laborious and costly data entry process. What many organizations overlook and fail to include in the solution selection process are all the ancillary required costs of operating these devices over time and the impact to the field worker utilizing these devices.

Business Process Enhancement

There are many benefits to using pen and paper in a business process; it is fast and easy to use, it requires little or no training, there are no ongoing support costs other than pens and forms, it allows the customer to be the center of the business process and not the technology, to summarize, it is just simple. The downside, until now is that all the information captured by pen and paper must be keyed into other systems. The remainder of this document will compare the DPAS  solution to a tablet based solution and provide the information you will need to understand why DPAS  makes sense.

The Laptop Phenomenon

Portable computers came into their own with the wide spread adoption of the Internet. The Internet allowed these portable computers to be connected remotely and allow for real-time interaction with corporate systems. This connectivity also created the need for additional security devices, security software, data encryption, enhanced user authentication and complex device management platforms to manage the mobile workers.

Ensuring applications are the same on every laptop, as well as configuration settings and security software, was, and still is an arduous task for organizations of all sizes. And with the new privacy laws it is imperative for a company, and its client’s well being, that all personal data is encrypted and protected from theft and misappropriation, further increasing the cost of ownership.

The Tablet

The next evolutionary step in portable computing was the tablet computer. These devices in addition to providing all the functionality of a laptop, allows users to write in their native handwriting and store images of the notes or electronic forms on their computers. Some tablets also allow users to convert handwritten notes into typed data. This was the start of the natural writing interface to data entry. The pitfall of this technology is that the already short battery life of the laptop is now shortened by the additional requirements of the constantly used pressure sensitive screens as well as the additional processing and memory requirements of the device itself not to mention the cost of the tablet is higher than the cost for a laptop.

The Problems with Mobile Computing

Mobile computing with all of its advantages for automation and efficiencies has not come without a steep price tag. The cost of a typical corporate laptop is approximately $2,000 for hardware and operating system, another $1,000 for software and $500 for system management tools. On top of these hardware and software costs, published studies from world renowned research organizations such as Gartner has put the cost of support and maintenance on laptops and tablets at $4,000 per year. This includes not only licenses to maintain the software but also the labor required to download, test and deploy patches and updates to each machine as well as security management. This brings the total cost of ownership of a typical tablet computer to over $16,000 over 3 years. It is important to note these costs do not include the cost of communications to allow the mobile computer to connect to the central office, which significantly affects the total cost of ownership.

DPAS Digital Paperwork Solution - The best of both worlds!

DPAS  utilizes a digital pen and paper technology, which is easy to use, has a low cost of ownership, and is unobtrusive to business processes. This means people utilizing this technology can continue to write with pen and paper. All the information written is captured electronically, transmitted to a central processing server via the Internet and made available to back office and document management systems immediately. Data can be transmitted in two ways. The pens are Bluetooth enabled and can be paired with approved cellular devices where data is routed through a secure connection back to the server. Additionally, based on business requirements, the pens can be docked in a USB cradle attached to a PC or workstation which will also send the data back for processing if real time data is not required.

The best and easiest way to gain wide spread adoption of a new technology is to not change the way people have to work. By using DPAS end users can still provide the same high quality of customer service and interaction without having to worry about their WIFI connection, battery life or just dealing with the booting up and shutting down time of the computers. Not to mention the built in disaster recovery of having the paper as a back-up if there should be any disruption related to data processing centers.

DPAS - Accuracy of Handwriting
Through extensive testing, our technologists have statistically proven the accuracy of the handwriting recognition utilizing the DPAS solution is much better than that of a Tablet PC, at a field level. This can be accomplished because of the extensive data type library utilized in defining field data on a digital form. The following table depicts the results of this testing:

Data Type                  DPAS                                     Tablet PC
1-2 digits                    96.16%                                   92.99%
3-digits                       94.53%                                   92.93%
3-alpha                      89.00%                                   84.00%
First name+               93.03%                                   88.09%
Cities+                        93.08%                                   77.08%

DPAS Digital Paperwork – A “Green” Solution
An average television or computer running for 8 hours per day generates 618 lbs of CO2 annually. A laptop computer would generate 77 lbs of CO2 annually. As service oriented companies rely heavily on technology to provide cost effective and mobile solutions to improve workflows and business efficiencies, little to no attention is given to the environment and the effects of the technology as it relates to creating increasing amounts of carbon footprints. By utilizing digital pen & paper technology as a mobile and cost effective solution, you eliminate the need for laptops, PDA’s and other hardware known to produce large amounts of CO2. The amount of CO2 emissions produced by a digital pen compared to that of a laptop or a desktop computer is little to nothing and represents not only a cost effective business solution, but an environmental improvement, significantly reducing the carbon footprints attributed to necessary technology.