How digitisation boosts your regulatory compliance

You want to improve your regulatory compliance, but you’re buried underneath stacks of disorganised paper documents and wrestle every day with inefficient processes. Sound familiar?

If you’re struggling with your compliance checks, it's time to digitise.

But first, let’s take a closer look at the rules you need to follow.

How does regulatory compliance affect you?

With so many regulations to consider, it can be hard to keep up the momentum. Different industries will have different compliance measures they need to adhere to. Some common regulations you might face include:

• GDPR. This enforces the lawful, fair and transparent processing and storage of sensitive data. GDPR affects both digital and paper documents and how you process them.
• The Data Protection Act (DPA) controls how organisations use personal information. The DPA also grants the right to find out what information the government and other organisations store about you.
• HIPAA. For American businesses or clients, HIPAA helps to safeguard medical information. It stipulates how healthcare providers and insurance companies manage personally identifiable information.

Failing to meet regulatory compliance requirements can lead to penalties or fines, depending on the offence. Often, what exacerbates these compliance problems is outdated paper processes.

The paper compliance problem

There are more than a few ways that paper documents can jeopardise your compliance.

• Disaster recovery. Floods, fires and storms can result in the destruction of important documents.
• Theft and loss. How often do you find yourself looking for that one document you were sure you left on your desk? Paper documents can easily get lost without you realising.
• Data mishandling. Your employees may lose documents, leave them out, or let them slip into unauthorised hands.
• Tracking. It’s hard to keep track of when you created paper documents and when they need destroying.

Paper processes are unsustainable at best, and dangerous at worst. With all these risks, it’s no wonder you’re struggling with compliance.

Fortunately, digitisation is here to help.

The digitisation solution

Digitising is a simple way to gain more control over your Document Management and boost your compliance. Scanning and digitising documents is safer because it:

• Only allows authorised users access.
• Minimises the risk of tampering.
• Follows standardised processes.
• Is easier to trace and track.
• Reduces human error.

Although it seems like a huge task, digitisation is very straightforward. A typical digitisation workflow for compliance involves:

1. Identifying sensitive data in your organisation and how you currently store it.
2. Prioritising records and documents for scanning. Source secure physical storage for original copies.
3. Organising the digital copies and labelling physical records.
4. Securely destroying documents that are no longer needed.

This workflow is crucial for heavily-regulated organisations, such as NHS Trusts. It helps them remain compliant while moving towards their long term transformation goals.

How Apogee boosted compliance for NHS Trusts through digitisation

“Health and social care services in England must end the unnecessary reliance on paper in the treatment of patients. It’s key to making services safer, more effective and more efficient.”
- Tim Kelsey, NHS National Director for Patients and Information

Apogee assisted the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust in their digitisation journeys and boosted their compliance by:

• Utilising Document Management. With our class-leading Document Management software, we assisted the NHS Northumbria Trust in building a ground-breaking digital HR system. This secured their employees and management information and updated their metadata in real-time.
• Streamlining inefficient processes. According to projections, we are likely to have saved the Trust thousands of hours of manual work by integrating workflows with their digital HR records held on the IBM ESR System. Not only that, we improved accuracy, compliance and reporting which will enhance the Trust’s performance for years to come.
• Replacing paper documents with e-forms. After our overhaul of the Trust’s HR system, we implemented eForms to streamline their pregnancy risk assessments. This led to a more transparent, accurate and compliant process with standardised assessment structures to ensure consistent formatting.

The Trust saved time, money, and compliance uncertainty by digitising their paper processes. This allowed them to focus on delivering superb patient care.

Digitisation goes hand-in-hand with regulation

Don’t let stacks of paper get on top of your compliance. Digitisation helps you monitor and secure your documents, in line with data protection regulations.

But, if you don’t have the resources to digitise, you’ll need an expert partner who knows the laws surrounding your specific industry. Apogee, have helped countless organisations digitise their Document Management. We provide a collaborative end-to-end service, and listen to your needs to find a solution that’s right for you.

Ready to boost your compliance? Get in contact today by filling out the form below.