Visioneer Aims Intelligent Imaging Solutions at Healthcare Efficiencies

By Nicole Zaro Stahl, Hacienda Network Staff Writer

Company Hopes to Apply "OneTouch" Technology to Streamlining Storage of Medical Records

Committed to "producing products that solve real problems," Hacienda tenant Visioneer Inc. has a promising opportunity in the national push to streamline healthcare. As a leading developer of "intelligent imaging solutions," Visioneer's value proposition lies in the way its proprietary technology integrates with other software programs to deliver OneTouch scanning. The process requires little more than a mouse click to incorporate paper-based data or images into a company's workflow system.

Reducing a once-complex operation into a single automated step generates remarkable productivity gains. "Not only are documents scanned without disrupting the flow of other programs on the computer, but OneTouch automatically loads them onto the desktop so the scanned image or text can be dragged and dropped right into the desired application. Users don't have to learn anything new," explains Visioneer Vice President and CFO Greg Elder.

The supreme ease-of-use is a key differentiator in today's market, and an especially welcome feature when cost-cutting is the order of the day for most businesses. "Customers are looking to mine more value from their existing enterprise systems," adds Vice President and Chief Information Officer Walt Thinfen. A solution like Visioneer's, which streamlines operations without a major investment, is very attractive.

Visioneer has spent the past decade building on its OneTouch technology, first introduced in 1997. Many enhancements have resulted from partnerships with the producers of large enterprise applications like SAP and Adobe, as well as attention to the types of business problems encountered day to day.

The company is looking forward to applying the same approach to information management in the healthcare arena. "Right now there are several types of archiving software that don't talk to each other. Different standards do not make much sense for consumers. Our strategy is to develop commonality so we will be at the forefront of this new virtual world," Thinfen says.

A few years ago Thinfen started to build a community of Silicon Valley CEOs and CIOs to help reflect on how the company visualizes its future applications. One byproduct of the collective feedback is a OneTouch application that vastly simplifies the management of expense and travel reports. The new system extends the OneTouch approach to once-only handling of the physical input-receipts, for instance. Thinfen explains that converting paper into digital form at the point of entry eliminates the multiple touch points in the standard document lifecycle. Collecting and copying receipts, manually filling in forms, sending a stack of paper to others to process-all these steps take time and cost money. Once digitized, the data are searchable, as well as permanently attached to the originating form, joined by what Thinfen describes as a "digital staple," and always available for review.

Practicing what it preaches, Visioneer's Hacienda office at 5673 Gibraltar Drive is highly automated, thanks to the company's own technology integration. The facility includes a Solutions Center, where Thinfen continues to invite local CIOs for a tour and a "productive exchange of ideas." For more information, call him at (925) 251-6350 or visit www.visioneer.com.

Photo: Visioneer VP/CIO Walt Thinfen and VP/CFO Greg Elder in the company's Solutions Center.

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