A tutorial for effective in-house
document scanning procedures
1.
Determine your purpose
a.
Why are you scanning these documents? Is it for
archiving purposes, or are they being imported into a document management system
or EMR?
These questions will help you determine the file format, naming schema, and
resolution needed for the project.
2.
Identify your file format and
naming schema
a.
In most instances you will want to work with the
PDF file format, there are some document management systems that prefer TIFF
files but they are becoming less and less relevant.
i.
PDF files allow you to create multipage files
that are ideal for most large scale document scanning projects.
ii.
They can become completely searchable, with use
of an OCR program, allowing you to quickly jump to relevant information within
the document.
iii.
Acrobat Reader is a free program that allows you
to open and read PDF files and one that can be downloaded by anyone.
iv.
With recent advances in the PDF/A file format you
can expect PDF files to be around for many years to come.
b.
Chose a naming schema that allows you to quickly
identify the file that you want to open.
i.
Example: If you are a doctor’s office, a naming
format that closely represents the format used with the paper documents often
works best.
(LastName_FirstName_DateOfBirth.pdf)
ii.
For large scale projects chose a name that can be
quickly identified within the paper documents. If the information you need
resides on one page that is located anywhere within the first 10 pages of the
file you may find yourself wasting valuable time trying to name each file when
another name could be used instead and is much easier to identify.
3.
Chose your color format
a.
There are three basic color outputs that you can
chose from with most scanners, Black and White, Grayscale, and Full Color.
i.
Black and White will give you the smallest file
type but will also produce the lowest quality scan.
ii.
Grayscale is the most common and the format that
we recommend. It gives you the half tones and depth that black and white cannot
offer and produces a slightly smaller file size than Full Color.
iii.
Full Color is becoming more and more popular as
the price of storage continues to drop.
4.
Disassemble Your Documents
a.
Identify which pages need to be scanned.
b.
Remove all pages from the folder or binding and
begin to flip page by page removing all of the staples and placing the post-it
notes on the backside of the page or over empty space within the page.
(Post-it notes are very common and often cover up crucial information. You need
to decide whether you want to keep the information contained on the post-it
notes as well as the best way to capture that information. Very often we will
stick the post-it notes on the back side of the current page.)
c.
Disassembly of the documents is the most time
consuming step involved in high volume document scanning. The more accurate you
are when taking apart the documents the smoother and faster the project will be.
5.
Cover Sheets
a.
Cover sheets are often used to separate files in
order to scan multiple small files at the same time.
Using cover sheets with pre-named bar codes will vastly improve scan time and
will make your project much faster.
6.
Scan your documents
a.
If you have taken the appropriate actions that
lead up to the actual scanning of your paper documents you will find that the
actual scanning of your documents will be easy and smooth.
As with any project the more you plan ahead the greater the quality of the final
product.