For people in rural areas, community hospitals are often the only source of healthcare. available. Rural hospitals are limited in the services and the number of beds they can provide so being able to maximize their space for patient care is always a top priority. Many rural hospitals are now realizing that if they can start electronically managing their files they can save not only space but money on operating expenses.

Family Health West, located in Fruita, CO, is a rural hospital that serves a community of 12,000 people. Family Health West is a non-profit healthcare organization that is committed to providing the best care for its patients. Because their patient files were on paper, it was difficult for hospital staff to locate, track, and protect patient documents. This was having an effect on the quality of care they were providing and hospital went looking for a solution.

Family Health West worked with D2Xchange, a Digitech Systems reseller, to implement PaperVision^® Capture, a Document scanning software, to digitize patient records and PaperVision^® Enterprise, an on-premise document management system, to store and manage their documents in-house.

Today, all patient records are securely protected and HIPAA compliant the hospital was able to reduce records storage costs and get back to the business of patient care. Family Health West has been able improve productivity by 555%, transitioning from needing 8 associates to assist 900 visits monthly, to helping 10,000 patients with just 16 employees aboard.

The records department receives 100 to 120 requests for information every week. Instead of spending as much as seven days looking for a single record, the department is now able to process these requests in less than 24 hours. This has reduced the amount of time staff spend looking for records by 86%.