Home Forums Discussions Feedback and Recommendations Previewing Imported Items

For people using a PC-Fax setup and document management software such as Paperport, it would be great to be able to view a preview of the file you are importing, within the "Import From File" window.

That way you could browse for the file you want, select it, and then while still in the "Import File" window, you could view a preview of the item you chose. This would aid in entering in the Item Description fields.

As it stands, we have to go back into Paperport, memorize the necessary information for entering in AC, going back into AC, and trying to recall that information we just memorized. The file also must be closed if the user is to choose the "Delete File After Importing" feature.

While there are workarounds (using two monitors; dragging and dropping the file into the patient's chart, and then going back into the Item Description to edit the fields there) these are exactly that: workarounds.

I look at them in Paperport and print them with cutePDF. They are saved to a file on the front desk computer with patient labels and are imported by the receptionist.

It sounds like we have similar setups. The part I am particularly interested in is the receptionists side of this task. What I think you are saying is that you rename the files to include the information the receptionists will enter when importing. While I think that is definitely a good solution, to me that is doubling up the task. The receptionists will be entering the description information into AC, which you have essentially already done while renaming the file.

In our case, the receptionists are the first to view and sort the received faxes, so the process appears even more redundant. View fax for it's contents, name the fax with necessary information, import, and re enter necessary information.

The less clicks, the less double entry, the better.

I review the incoming faxes and those that need signatures or refaxing are done there on the spot through paperport.

When I print to cute PDF, the box comes up to label. I could leave it with the date stamp from brother but I find it easier to simply rename it (takes about 2 seconds) the default box is names "to AC" on the reception computer.

The receptionist then just opens selects the name presses F9 to open imports and imports the file, deleting the original. Because I have labeled it "john smith lead" she knows what catagory to put it in. Takes about 25 seconds on her part.

Sounds like a smooth setup.

To reiterate, I would like to avoid labeling twice. Having the preview screen (which is a feature already integrated into the standard Windows folder view) while importing the item would allow the office staff to view the fax in Paperport, just for the patient name, then head right into AC, select the file to import, and enter the information there. No renaming the file, no memorizing.


That being said, AC does have an option to do what I am trying for, although only for scanned documents. Maybe this will illustrate what I am looking for better:

When you are importing hundreds or thousands of charts, decreasing the time that the process takes by even a few seconds is beneficial. We have 17,000 patients with a chart in AC. I would say that each patient has an average of 10 scanned items, this is probably an underestimate. If you decreased the time it takes to scan in one document by 3 seconds, that translates into just under 142 hours of saved time, over the course of 17,000 patients.

So if when the staff imports a document via the scanner, they want to enter the description information, they could either go back to the scanner, pick up the document, put it in front of them, analyze it, and then enter the description information. Or, what makes more sense to me, after scanning the document, the user can select the "click to view scanned document" button, which will bring up a preview of the document, and they can get the necessary information from here.

If we could do this for imported files, it would eliminate the need to click back and forth between Paperport, labeling more than once, and ultimately would provide for a smoother process.