Ann Arbor, MI – March 5, 2005: Digital Initiatives Enable Trinity Health to cut operating cost and become more efficient. Trinity Health, a major health network providing wellness related services across the country, chose Freedom Imaging Systems to provide an electronic records management solution for the Central Scheduling arm of its Patient Financial Services division at its own St. Joseph Mercy Health System (SJMH).

Freedom’s RICAR (Record Image Capture And Retrieval) software — a powerful document management system — will be used to help SJMH Central Scheduling gain control of its paper-based processes and adopt a virtually paperless work environment. Fortune 1000 corporations throughout the U.S. have used RICAR to improve productivity, revenue and customer satisfaction outcomes.

Previously, the department received thousands of paper faxes each day from physician offices requesting patient testing. The faxes had to be separated by patient and filed before scheduling an appointment. The paper requisition was then forwarded to the appropriate radiology facility to await the patient. With Freedom’s FaxCapture, paper faxes were replaced by electronic images. The large volume of daily faxes are captured and filed electronically, saving office staff the time spent filing.

FaxCapture allows office workers to break apart faxes electronically, separating the ten or fifteen page documents into individual patient episodes. The images are moved into RICAR’s Workflow application to receive further indexing and approvals prior to scheduling. Two workflows were setup, one to manage all incoming requests and another to send the requisitions once their appointment is scheduled. After a patient is scheduled, the test requisition prints at the appropriate site automatically.

“People had to search in three different areas to find a requisition. Sometimes it took ten minutes or more to find a requisition with a patient or doctor on the phone. This system is a huge time saver.”

-Lori Parks, Revenue Cycle Analyst

Bottlenecks were occurring previously when patients mistakenly arrived at the wrong location for testing. Their paper work could not be sent over in a timely fashion causing a need to reschedule patient service. Workers at the radiology sites now enjoy having access into the patient’s electronic file from their location. Fewer tests are rescheduled leading to more patients receiving treatment, quicker. RICAR is helping to optimize the customer experience and drive revenue growth. Patients and doctors don’t wait on the phone while office staff search through boxes for requisitions.

Central Scheduling capitalizes on FaxPress, a real world solution that integrates as a network fax solution fully compatible with Microsoft Windows Server, Exchange Server, and Office. It acts as a network device, providing workstations with access to incoming and outgoing faxes, phonebooks, transaction logs and other fax-related data. FaxCapture saves these records into RICAR’s data repository, allowing Central Scheduling to easily access and track faxes right from their PCs.

About Trinity

The fourth largest member of Catholic Health Ministries that serves people through its network of hospitals, long-term care facilities, home care and hospice programs, senior living communities, ambulatory care centers, physician offices, and other health care services with 6,500 acute care and non-acute care beds. Trinity Health is a faith-based organization devoted to a ministry of healing in the communities they serve.

About Freedom Imaging Systems

Freedom Imaging Systems, established in 1991, is a leading provider of rapidly deployable enterprise content management solutions.  Freedom develops RICAR, an enterprise-class solution that combines integrated document management, business process workflow and electronic records management in a single application. RICAR allows organizations to manage digital content, including scanned paper documents, faxes, print streams, application files, electronic forms, web content, multi-media files, and emails.  RICAR is used by fortune 1000 companies to automate business processes, reduce the time and cost of performing important business functions, improve organizational efficiency and address the need for regulatory compliance through the management, control and sharing of digital content with employees, business partners and customers. Visit www.freeimage.com for more information.

For additional information, please contact:

Freedom Imaging Systems
Phone: 734-327-5600
Email: information@freeimage.com
www.freeimage.com