Document Imaging Industry on the Spot, Under the Gun As Government Begins E-Health Records Push

A famous man once said, "He to whom much is given, much is expected."

The sentiment well sums up the privilege and the predicament of the document imaging industry as the biggest document scanning project in the history of the world gets underway: the government push for electronic health records.

Billions of dollars will be spent on the billions of paper documents waiting to be scanned and brought into the digital realm. The project is huge, and totally dependent on successful implementation and use of cutting edge document imaging technology.

Opportunity, yes, but also danger.

On the one hand, document imaging services are going to see a lot of dollars. On the other hand, document imaging companies are going to face immense pressure if not everything goes as smoothly as planned (which, of course, it won't).

Populists will no doubt rail against "pork barrel spending," if certain projects or parts of projects turn out to provide less benefit than anticipated. More perilous yet, document imaging providers must take extreme care not to put sensitive medical data at risk of theft or misuse.

Suffice it to say the document imaging industry has its work cut out for it over the next few years, as electronic health records go from an ideal to a real thing.

The good news for business users of document imaging technology is that, faced with such a daunting task, document imaging companies will have to work hard to improve and perfect these technologies--which should benefit everyone, in the long run.