contact us     help    login  

Legal, Healthcare, and Financial Services Industries Present Burgeoning Opportunity for Solutions

Professionals in document-intensive vertical industries such as legal, healthcare, and financial services are changing how their documents are managed and implementing document workflow and management solutions to make their businesses more efficient. InfoTrends defines a solution as a set of software and services often accompanied by hardware that solves a specific business problem, improves a process, or creates a new business opportunity for a customer.

We break solutions down into four major categories:

• Device Management
• Document Output Management
• Document Capture, Creation, and Routing
• Document Management and Retrieval

In general, workflow and document management systems offer these industries a better way to capture, transmit, retrieve, maintain, and communicate masses of information, improving the efficiencies of their business and the businesses around them. Each of these industries offers their own intricacies, regulations, and compliance issues that make them unique and, in some cases, very specialized in terms of the types of systems that can be implemented and the types of companies that can deliver the right solution.

Legal practitioners are:

• Shifting to electronic delivery and management of internal and external documents to comply with government regulations and changing requirements in the courts, and also to decrease the deluge of paper and reduce costs.
• Implementing document and case management solutions to gain better control over case-related materials.
• Scanning litigation discovery materials to make it easier to review and analyze matter-related information with the potential of uncovering the “smoking gun” that will help them win their case.
• Looking for outsourcing partners that can help them more effectively manage many of their document processes.

Significant opportunities exist within the healthcare industry for organizations involved in fulfilling the printing, content and document management, and distribution needs of companies in this field. It is imperative that healthcare organizations employ technology to streamline operations, improve patient care, and build a safer healthcare system. Service providers with products and services that address the following areas will likely find opportunities in the healthcare sector:

• Computer-based patient records: Digitizing, capturing, and compiling all clinical and administrative information related to the care and treatment of a single patient
• Data warehousing: Storing sizeable volumes of clinical, financial, and operational information that is easily accessible to healthcare practitioners
• Document management: Scanning, electronically storing, and managing documents that can be easily accessed and shared by practitioners in various geographic locations
• Secure information management: Internet and intranet solutions that enable the secure integration and communication of information from numerous locations.

The financial services industry presents opportunities for document services providers to offer printing as well as augment printing with value-added services related to the management of documents and other content. Executives in the financial services industry are concerned about:

• Data capture, manipulation, management, and hosting
• Document workflow and content creation and management, including content storage
• Information and communication security (faxing, etc.)
• The repeated printing of documents such as forms and transaction documents
• Varying levels of customization, personalization, and nationalization/localization

The legal, healthcare, and financial services markets are very intricate vertical industries that each require different knowledge and expertise levels. Vendors must address the specific needs and requirements of these markets regarding digital documents, and they must also understand the industry-specific languages, compliance issues, and environments that surround document capture and management. These industries are document-intensive, and the new regulations concerning compliance and privacy of information related to these materials present a burgeoning opportunity for solutions in these markets.

The preceding is an excerpt from InfoTrends’ report, “Document Capture, Routing, and Management for the Legal, Healthcare, and Financial Industries.” To learn more about the report or to make a purchase, visit our online store or contact Scott Phinney at +1 ext. 123 or .

Copyright © 2007 InfoTrends. All rights reserved. Reproduction or reuse of InfoTrends materials is strictly prohibited without prior written consent. If you are interested in referencing InfoTrends’ content, please submit your request to .