A vertical market is a particular industry or group of enterprises in which similar products or services are developed and marketed using similar methods (and to whom goods and services can be sold). Broad examples of vertical markets are: insurance, real estate, banking, heavy manufacturing, retail, transportation, hospitals/healthcare, education, law and government.  Vertical market software is software aimed at a particular vertical market and can be contrasted with horizontal market software that can be used in a cross-section of industries.

imageSource believes enormous opportunities are available to the providers of digital document technology who explore these vertical markets. A short series of various verticals will be spotlighted within IN FOCUS to help dealers become more productive in discovering, evaluating, then placing their best solutions to increase their client base, customer satisfaction, and profit margins.

The following case study excerpts for your review are courtesy of ECM2 /VertMart clients, ABBYY USA, KODAK and Kodak Distributor, New Wave Technologies.

SITUATION 1
Shands Jacksonville Medical Center finds paper routing of enterprise-wide contracts and agreements inefficient, frustrating and time-consuming. E-mail routing improves process slightly, but issues remain.

OBJECTIVE
Create an electronic routing and approval system for contracts and agreements. Eliminate problems with different parties reviewing differing versions. Speed up and streamline the process for greater productivity. Find or build a system allowing the medical center to work in their preferred fashion, instead of being forced to adapt to software requirements.

SOLUTION
Kodak i30 Scanners teamed with HAMi PaperTracer Software.

SUMMARY
The large medical center in Florida handles a wide variety of contracts, from lease to sales and purchasing contracts, for services ranging from high-tech diagnostic equipment to software purchases. A staff of 150 managers uses the system then routes to appropriate department. In the past, most was routed in paper form, often by fax or traditional mail. Email with an attachment was eventually added but didn’t overcome routing productivity as few new if they had the latest version of a document. Was finance looking at the same page as legal or the vendor? Reconciling this was time-consuming. The Contracts Administration department sought a more streamlined, productive electronic solution and purchased the two Kodak i30 Scanners and the customizable HAMI PaperTracer Software. This combined selection followed a search and review process that dismissed companies wanting the hospital to adapt to their programmed templates which would have been exhaustingly difficult, vs. the flexibility to provide what the hospital preferred. Kodak’s ReadIris Pro 9 OCR Software’s ease of use and performance was fast and reliable and the i30Scanner increased efficiency and productivity in all areas of use, while the PaperTracer could both restrict or allow access to their high-security databases besides supplying a reference database with forms and templates on contract negotiation, among other material.

“With this combined solution, we’ve eliminated so much paper, inefficiency and wasted time. I am extremely happy and would recommend the scanners and software as a life and work changing experience with amazingly positive benefits.”

Debbie Monseratt
Contracts Administrator Shands
Jacksonville Medical Center

SITUATION 2
Lexington Clinic was suffering from a plague of insurance-related paperwork, a labor- and space-intensive headache that cost the Kentucky healthcare facility thousands of dollars and hours of wasted time. The facility also faced escalating employment costs to hire people to work with and manage the cascades of insurance forms, patient identification and other paperwork.

OBJECTIVE
To track patients’ health insurance coverage and payments through a workflow process of automation solutions designed for healthcare organizations, in order to manage the deluge of paperwork required by insurance companies.

SOLUTION
Medimation ABBYY FineReader

SUMMARY
Medimation, which specializes in workflow process automation solutions for healthcare organizations, recommended to the clinic the use of optical character recognition (OCR) to manage the deluge of paperwork required by insurance companies such as Medicaid, United Teachers and Blue Cross/Blue Shield. ABBYY’s FineReader Engine SDK was selected to drive the OCR component. ABBYY had an incredible amount of intellectual property built into its system and the ABBYY FineReader Engine became the core of the OCR product. Lexington Clinic had purchased monitor-mounted cameras to scan photo identification, insurance cards and other documentation to do with HIPAA compliance and billing notification. Medimation integrated the cameras with the clinic’s existing set-up of two Fujitsu scanners, which utilized the ABBYY-based OCR solution.  Data is stored in a separate server, and today receptionists scan patients’ identification and insurance cards into Medimation’s Cardshot program, part of the developer’s overall workflow suite. Staff no longer have to rummage through paper files; instead, they can view and change patient information with the click of a mouse, improving efficiency and reducing errors. Prior to the integration of the ABBYY-based OCR solution, the clinic was considering hiring an employee for a cash-posting position. With the system in-place, the clinic not only avoided hiring another person; it eliminated three cash-posting positions for savings of at least $100,000 per year. The combination of ABBYY’s powerful OCR engine and Medimation’s expertise in healthcare workflow and document storage is a success, and will further expand the duo’s reach into the vast vertical market of healthcare.

"Medimation and Lexington Clinic enjoy a long, trusting relationship. “The Medimation  staff are great at thinking out-of-the-box to find efficient solutions – while still keeping cost, user-friendliness and standardized, easy workflow uppermost in their minds.”

-Kim Newland
Lexington Clinic Director
Central Billing Office