Formtran Provides Automated Forms Processing System

Between its 14 clinics, the School of Dentistry at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSFSD) provides more than 120,000 patient visits each year, offering dental care, dental surgery and care for special needs patients. The school performs continuous chart audits to ensure students are adhering closely to charting protocols. At each clinic, assistants audit the charts and fill out a complex form that indicates whether the student has done an acceptable or unacceptable job of charting the medical history, progress notes, baseline examinations and treatment plans. In all, they check 77 aspects of the chart and consolidate their findings into a single form.

Unfortunately, the school found it was wasting hours and dollars trying to monitor its students. "It's really important that we ensure that our students are following through with charting procedures but manual entry was becoming too vast a task for our staff," says Gina Dossey, clinic administration analyst.

UCSFSD was referred to Formtran by another department at UCSF. The UCSFSD team showed the chart audit form to Formtran and discussed their requirements for the project, namely affordability and ease of use. "Things change often in the school environment, and we can't bog down staff with new technologies or run up huge expenses," says Tom Ferris, Director of Information Services.

Formtran recommended a turnkey solution consisting of scanning software, a scanner, training, and technical support for the School of Dentistry at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSFSD). UCSFSD was up and running in less than 10 days.