KSB Hospital Ensures Healthy Document and Image Management

Katherine Shaw Bethea Hospital (KSB) opened its doors in Dixon, Illinois on New Year's Day, 1897. Today, in addition to its 80-bed acute care facility and other clinics in Dixon, KSB also operates health centers and clinics in Ashton, Polo, Amboy and Oregon, Illinois.

 

KSB used WebDocs to eliminate to the costly administrative burden of managing documents and images that were traditionally stored on paper.

 

Going forward...in reverse

In October 2003, the board of directors and president of KSB Hospital made a purposeful decision to move toward the future by implementing electronic management of medica records and images. This was seen as a way to streamline the flow of information and reduce costs.

 

KSB then purchased a document management product supposedly designed specifically for the healthcare industry. However, that product did not meet the hospital's needs. The product stored images in a proprietary format, used an expensive storage medium and consumed considerable CPU resources.

 

Best of Both Worlds

Within a year of implementing their original software, KSB Hospital began searching anew for a more cost-effective solution that would better meet its needs. WebDocs from RJS Software gave KSB the flexibility they sought.

 

KSB chose to run the IBM i version of WebDocs while storing their image files on lower-cost disk units on a Storage Area Network (SAN). KSB can now store any file in its native format and access them from any number of platforms.

 

Integration Ensures Accuracy

One of the key strengths of WebDocs is its ability to integrate to existing line-of-business applications. This allows index key information for each document or file to be consistent and accurate every time. For KSB, when documents enter WebDocs, an account number is obtained form a variety of sources. Once WebDocs has the account number, the remaining index keys are populated by accessing other databases. This makes these documents easy to find when needed.

 

Imitation is Flattery

In addition to medical records, the hospital's human resources department now uses WebDocs to manage its documents. Historical employee records were scanned in WebDocs and they are now kept up-to-date on an ongoing basis. The hospital continues to expand its use of WebDocs. It currently adds about 70,000 documents per week.

 

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