A recent discussion occurred regarding work flow for those who have difficulty using computers and want to have their work entered by scanning into the EMR. One way this could be done would be to print off blank consult sheets with the patients details barcoded at the top. The user then writes all his notes, or uses a templated paper note. The note is then scanned back in and is automatically filed into the appropriate place. Synapse EMR doesn't have OCR yet, so this can not be done right this moment. But a hand held bar scanner is cheap, and the users could scan the details so that it prefills the addresults form, and then it gets scanned to the right place. That is easily doable.
A document management system I've worked with in one of my past projects required all documents to have two barcodes in a particular spot on the paper. One barcode was for the patient ID, the other for the document type. High speed scanners could then associate the document to the correct patient record grouped under certain document types.
