At a Glance
In our Point of View series, leaders from Accenture Technology Labs offer their opinions on new and emerging technologies and trends, on technology innovation as a key driver of high performance and much more. This piece explores the potential of new digital pen and paper technology. Can we really have a paperless world? With new digital pen and paper technology, it's certainly possible. Business still relies heavily on pen and paper. This may be
for legal reasons or convenience, because some users are uneasy about making a
full switch to the electronic world or because it is simply too costly to equip
a large team of field workers with individual computing devices. Yet handling
forms, receipts, and other paper documents often slows down essential processes
and generates costly bottlenecks for many businesses. And at some point, this
data needs to be incorporated into an enterprise's computing systems.
 Download this report (PDF, 267K)
PDF Help Shortcut to:
How does it work?
Benefits of digital pen and paper
Financial Services—speeding up paper-based
processes
Healthcare—enhancing the safety,
quality and efficiency of patient care
Manufacturing—aiding in quality control and safety
check-ups
Government Bureaus—improving the
quality of public services Posted: October 2003
Digital pen and paper provides a cost-effective way for
traditional paper processes to enter the digital world by fusing the
traditional means of information-gathering with electronic communications.
Until recently, consumers have been the primary target audience for digital pen
and paper technology. Accenture Technology Labs, the technology research and
development organization within Accenture, has developed in-depth experience of
the technology and believes that it is now mature enough to make a radical
difference in enterprises. In collaboration with client teams, the Labs are
inventing assets that make this technology innovation relevant to a number of
industries.
How does it
work?
Digital pen and paper technology combines the
portability and social acceptance of traditional pen and paper with a
computer's ability to store, share, and act upon the information collected.
Digital pens are used like ordinary pens—only they are embedded with
electronics capable of storing time-stamped content. Users write on paper
printed with a faint irregular pattern of dots similar to map coordinates,
enabling the pen to know which form is being used, what is being written, where
on the form and when.
For increased security, each pen has a unique identifier
allowing all information recorded by it to be traced back to the source. The
data stored in the pen is transmitted through a synching inkwell or a Bluetooth
mobile phone to a central server for storage, further processing and analysis,
or transmission to colleagues.
The Labs considers digital pen and paper to be especially
relevant in situations requiring a significant amount of forms processing, and
when information such as signatures and figures needs to be collected, or a
paper-based item such as a receipt provided—either in or away from the office.
In workflow situations that involve multiple hand-offs between departments,
digital pen and paper technology can reduce cost sixfold.
Digital pen and paper technology can be easily introduced—at
a manageable cost—to users who are unfamiliar with or wary of new technologies.
For example, in industries that have tried and trusted paper-based processes,
digital pen and paper enables a new level of efficiency without disrupting
working procedures.
Benefits digital pen and
paper
Benefits of the technology include:
- Speedier forms processing. Written
information is electronically transmitted to a central database where it can be
accessed by authorized parties, without having to wait for it to be re-keyed
into an enterprise's system. Quicker access to information can improve customer
service.
- Automatic backup. Digital pen and paper
creates a virtual double of records and forms that can be accessed
enterprise-wide or by authorized external entities, while guarding a paper
trace if required. This should help improve reporting and compliance where
needed.
- Transparent transition and acceptance of a new
technology. The pens are so easy to use that little to no training
is required. Users can perform their duties as they always have while
benefiting from improved performance. Furthermore, digital pen and paper is
less physically intrusive than PCs or laptops in situations such as financial
discussions or census interviews.
- Traceability. The paper can have unique
identifiers which enable the pen to track and identify signatories. Information
is traceable back to a specific pen and data is time-stamped for added
accountability. Equipping workers with a digital pen and paper for forms
processing would cost a fraction of supplying them with computers or mobile
devices—both initially and for replacements. With a relatively modest
investment and minimal instruction, companies could achieve significant cost
savings, streamline processes and get a headstart on the
competition.
Financial
Services—speeding up paper-based procedures
The
insurance industry could save money by reducing the costs linked to paper
processing and increase revenue through not losing life assurance customers
during a lengthy approval process. Similarly, banks could save money and
improve customer services in areas such as loan applications or setting up new
accounts, by reducing response time to days or even hours. For both industries,
digital pen and paper would maintain the legal protection of having original
signatures on forms and retain the human touch (as opposed to mechanical)
that is essential when discussing and recording sensitive information. This
technology offers the opportunity to begin digitizing paper processes while
financial institutions can further explore digital signatures.
Healthcare—enhancing
the safety, quality, and efficiency of patient
care
Digital pen and paper could be used to modernize
the time-consuming, manual task of completing patient observation charts.
Information recorded by the pen would be transmitted to a central server and
integrated into an electronic patient record that could be accessed by
authorized third parties such as other attending physicians, insurance
companies and pharmacies.
Another use could be in combating fraud. The UK Health
Service estimates that prescription falsification costs them over $100 million
per year. With digital pen and paper, prescriptions would be digitally
transmitted from the doctor to the hospital’s server and then to the patient's
designated pharmacy, thus thwarting a person’s ability to manipulate or forge
what the doctor ordered. Pharmacists would have an online copy to compare to a
patient’s written prescription.
Improving healthcare
operations
Through access to an early version of the technology,
Accenture Technology Labs has developed the
Digital
Observations solution for the recording of patient information. Nursing
staff would use digital pen and paper to record patient observations the way
they normally do. Whatever is recorded on the charts would be digitally
recorded by the pen, transmitted to the hospital’s central server, and could be
consulted whenever and wherever the attending physicians required, thereby
creating a virtual double of the hard copy.
- Doctors would still make their rounds, but would be able to
access patients' charts prior to visiting them and prioritize visits as needed
or view a patient's progress over time electronically.
- Staff efficiency and patient care could be improved through
the solution's ability to alert staff when a patient's vital signs exceed safe
thresholds or when their medication has not been given (especially relevant for
those medicines where very accurate timing is vital).
- The Accenture Digital Observations solution could optimize
the usage of staff time, enhance human performance, and reassure patients,
without requiring special skills or training to implement it.
Manufacturing—aiding in quality control and safety
check-ups
Manufacturing a car requires more than
15,000 parts and accessories, which must fit and work together perfectly even
though they might be made by many different companies, in different countries.
Cars on assembly lines could be issued with a checklist that workers could
quickly complete with a digital pen for each vehicle they work on. This
information could be fed into a central system where managers and other
concerned parties could constantly monitor quality. The technology could also
be used for collecting and transmitting safety critical information from
aircraft and machine maintenance where the added safety of the pen’s time-stamp
and unique identification features would prove invaluable.
Government
bureaus—improving the quality of public services
The
UK's Police Magazine reported that of the 43.1 percent of time
spent by officers in police stations, 40 percent is spent on paperwork**.
Digital pen and paper could help reduce the enormous amount of time involved
filling in forms such as incident reports, so that police would have more time
to proactively serve the public. The postal service could use this technology
for tracking deliveries, and filling in customs forms. And census takers and
pollsters could be equipped with a digital pen and paper to enable statistics
to be tallied more rapidly and securely.
*National Institute of Standards and Technology
website
**“Bureaucracy Busters,” Police Magazine, February
2002
To Top |