Surety, LLC reportedly announced it has joined The Paperless Project’s Go Green Initiative, an awareness program that is designed to reduce the use of paper in organizations.
Officials at Surety, which provides data integrity protection, said that it will bring in its own experience in electronic record integrity issues to assist fellow members and other non-member organizations in making smart, proactive decisions related to the security of their electronic records as they make the decision to go paperless.
“By joining The Paperless Project, Surety is hoping to add a voice to the conversation about electronic record integrity issues, and help organizations interested in going paperless to make smart, proactive decisions related to the security of their electronic records,” said Tom Klaff, CEO of Surety.
Both Surety and The Paperless Project are of the opinion that since there are now so many organizations jumping on ‘save paper’ band wagon, therefore extreme care has to be taken in handling the huge volumes of highly critical documentation being converted from paper to electronic-only storage media. Most of the high level documents vary marginally in importance since these are intellectual property records, financial records, service level agreements, confidential reports and contracts to employees.
“For the vision of the paperless office to become a reality, organizations must be able to establish secure archiving practices to meet legal and compliance requirements,” Surety says it adds significant value to the migration to paperless offices by offering secure data integrity solutions that guarantee protection of independent and interlinked mission critical digital documentation, and offer legal and regulatory protection.
The Paperless Project is sponsored by Square 9 Softworks and is an association of content management providers who are dedicated to encouraging the adoption of electronic documents and processes within the office environment. Its Go Green Initiative helps to first reduce and then eliminate paper records, whilst helping organizations to transition in a structured, secure and efficient way.
The coalition has many companies with varying skills that help other organizations in comprehensive electronic documentation life cycle management including front-end capture, core repository, image conversion, viewing applications, and collaboration solutions, said officials.
Of major significance are medical health records, which once converted to digital Web-based data are then called electronic health records. One related report suggested that the Department of Health and Human Services should first build in, create and check fail-safe systems, check and certify them prior to before transferring all paper medical records to electronic media, which is in accordance with government law.
The metamorphism change requires studying from grass-root levels upwards the existing paperwork methods used and comparing with the best, proven effective and currently running electronic systems from the few agencies that already have full EHR.
The resulting gap analysis then requires thorough addressing, qualitative and quantifiable action plans firmly embedded in place, standards formulated that are non-negotiable, before IT is put into motion. Indeed, it requires total upfront collaboration between IT and HHS to expedite matters.
The U.S. government is supporting the EHR movement via well-formulated initiatives from the highest level and unambiguous forthright actions.
“We’ve got the most inefficient healthcare system imaginable. We’re still using paper; we’re still filing things in triplicate. Nurses can’t read prescriptions doctors have written out. Why wouldn’t we want to put that on an electronic medical record that will reduce error rates, reduce cost of healthcare and create jobs right now?, ” said President Barack Obama.
The proposed budget titled “A New Era of Responsibility: Renewing America’s Promise” has earmarked $630 billion over 10 years for the reform of the healthcare system, out of which $76.8 billion is dedicated towards HHS’s full Information Technology (IT) adoption.
This allocation comes close on the heels of the $19.2 billion, out of the $147.7 billion, set aside for health IT, by law in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, to create complete Electronic Health Records.
In June, Informative Graphics Corporation (IGC), which deals in viewing, collaboration and redaction technology, announced a partnership with The Paperless Project Coalition and its Go Green Initiative to educate businesses on creating the Paperless Office.
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Vivek Naik is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Vivek's articles, please visit his columnist page.Edited by
Erin Harrison