With a 35-building campus, getting information out to all employees is cumbersome and expensive. One phase of the Medical Center's project is to eliminate some paperwork generated internally at the center by never printing it in the first place. The material is transferred onto laser disk and made available at any computer terminal in the center using a secure Intranet connection and Web browsing software. The second phase involves using a computer and scanner to reproduce documents sent to the center, such as the current telephone record project. Eventually, the center plans to begin scanning in checks and accounts receivable, Voran said.
Employees love what they've seen so far.
Some paperwork already has been reduced. Voran said he used to get 50 to 60 memos a day. Nobody is more enthusiastic about the paperless office concept than Dean Powell, who heads up the division at the Missouri Department of Revenue that keeps track of tens of millions of pages of tax documents filed with the state every year. State workers are in the early stages of the project, learning the system and scanning in about 3,000 sales tax documents each day, said Powell, whose official title is manager of divisional support services for the division of taxation and collections. Currently, using the existing paperwork, resolving a taxpayer complaint can take days, or even weeks.