Reflecting on E-Forms
E-forms seem to be on the rise in the health care industry. Hospital software companies are offering e-forms and e-charting as part of a package that includes accounting and materials management. Unfortunately, software firms are selling the systems based on eliminating printing costs. That's not good for us.
Hospital financial people and administrators are looking at direct cost savings by eliminating printing. But many people on the inside (users) say the systems are much more cumbersome and time-consuming, especially in emergency situations. In some cases, we've seen nurses actually print
e-forms on laser printers, fill them out by hand, go back to their nursing stations and input information on the e-forms. This seems to be easier than pushing a mobile care station (a laptop on wheels) from patient to patient.
Hopefully, there will be some synergy between e-forms and printed forms that benefits distributors.
Mark McKinney
President
Celtic Marketing Inc.
Centerville, Ohio
The reasons for the lack of e-forms demand are simple: one-time sales with no "repeats," lack of comfort among end users who want hard copies of everything, and refusal on the part of some industries and government agencies to accept e-forms as legal and binding documents.
E-forms are a great idea, but their usage and practicality aren't as widespread as we were lead to believe. Then again, we could always just call it the "curse of Gutenberg."
Pete Guglietta
Graphics Category Manager
North American Corp.
Glenview, Ill.
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The question of the month:
What trends and selling opportunities are shaping the financial industry?
