Smart Document Solutions and Banner Health Exceeding Requirements in the Release of Information.

ATLANTA -- Smart Document Solutions (SDS) has revolutionized the Release-of-Information (ROI) industry by providing a standardized, electronic data delivery system to make all healthcare documentation transactions compliant with HIPAA regulations. Processing over 700,000 pages per day, this system has changed the way Banner Health and other healthcare facilities across the country are doing business today.

Banner Health's six facilities in Arizona went "live" on SDS's ROI solution in January, 2006 and they are already enjoying major benefits. With SDS handling Banner Health's centralized business office, images are encrypted, compressed, and securely transmitted to their Data Center where they are automatically printed and packaged or electronically delivered to a secure website for online viewing by Banner Health appointed staff. This relieves a huge burden on Banner's HIM department and saves significant dollars for their facility. Christine Steigerwald, Director of Health Information Management and Patient Financial Services at Banner Desert Medical Center, says "turn-around time has decreased significantly--sometimes our requests are delivered in less than 24 hours!" She added, "Before we implemented this system, we oftentimes had to wait as long as a week!"

Banner also had staff allocated to commute to each of their six offices on a daily basis to scan and photocopy records to take back to their central business office for processing requests. Those days are over. With the backlog scanning complete the HIM department is able to deploy this staff to other needed areas within the facility.

Ms. Steigerwald said, "The whole transition was so easy, and I'm no longer getting phone calls and complaints. The whole burden of managing this process is taken care of by SDS." She also added that she is able to go online to see status reports on all current requests at any time. "The system is user-friendly, easy, and instantaneous."

The critical factors that Banner Health considered when choosing a vendor to address their release-of-information challenges included the ability to obtain a quality solution, to have a system that could provide quick turn-around on requests, and more importantly, was compliant with HIPAA regulations. SDS stays abreast of all industry changes regarding ROI laws and regulations and they make it their business to keep themselves, their employees, and their customers aware of and in compliance with any new developments in federal regulations. In fact, the level of encryption SDS uses to secure the transmission of records exceeds the standard approved by HIPAA.

"SDS is so pleased to have earned Banner's ROI business, we are certain this is just the beginning of a long, mutually beneficial relationship with Banner Health," stated Dave Myers, Regional Vice President of Operations for Smart Document Solutions.

About Banner Health

Based in Phoenix, Banner Health is one of the largest, not-for-profit health care systems in the country. Banner has 20 facilities that offer an array of services including hospital care, home care, hospice care, nursing registries, surgery centers, laboratories, rehabilitation services. These facilities are located in seven states - Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada, and Wyoming. In addition to emergency and medical services, Banner Health medical centers house a variety of specialized services, including heart care, cancer treatment, delivery of high-order multiple births, organ transplants, bone marrow transplants, rehabilitation services, and behavioral health services.

About Smart Document Solutions (SDS)

Smart Document Solutions, LLC, a privately held company based in Alpharetta, Georgia, is the world's largest health document processor. SDS's proprietary document imaging services are used by more than 6,500 health care facilities nationwide. For almost 30 years, SDS has worked with facilities to make distributing health information secure and more efficient. More information is available at www.smartdocumentsolutions.net or call us at 1-800-367-1500.