Methods of delivery may have changed, but for EMS organizations, like society at large, the needs of business communication really haven’t. Whether they travel by U.S. post, are attached to emails or are uploaded to a cloud, there’s still a need to produce documents – lots of documents.
For those who handle the administrative duties of EMS organizations, this can eat up a lot of time. With every new missive – from employee communications to human resources and case notifications to procurement documents and other outfacing correspondence – they typically have to open a base document, save a working copy and then modify it as needed.
This is a process that has some shortcomings. One, it can be susceptible to mistakes – information may be input incorrectly, outdated information can slip through, the wrong template might be used. It may seem a small matter in the greater context of answering emergencies and saving lives, but in legal and health care communication, details often matter very much.
And two, even if done accurately, manual document creation takes time. That’s something overworked, short-staffed EMS organizations don’t have to spare.
“Sometimes these agencies work on these documents for hours, if not sometimes even for days,” noted Maaike Erents, business development specialist for SmartDocuments, which offers an automated document creation platform for emergency medical services and others, in a “Pinnacle Power Tip” recorded at the 2024 Pinnacle EMS Leadership Forum.
“There are easier ways to do that with SmartDocuments software. So why spend so many hours on these documents when it can be so much more efficient, and you can use these hours to work on different, maybe more important tasks in your agency?”
Standardizing and simplifying the document-creation process is what SmartDocuments is all about.
START FROM THE SAME PLACE
The core of the SmartDocuments system is smart templates that manage the visual elements of correspondence centrally and generate consistent documents that properly reflect them every time. Users then add their specific content (e.g., addresses, case data, individualized correspondence) automatically via XML or through a question-and-answer wizard that guides easy insertion of component information.
“You start by creating a template,” explained Joël Klumper, who works in international marketing for the company. “From the template you can make an interactive document. A lot of people who make the same document every time may have 100 versions or templates sitting around. But if you have a lot of people and a lot of documents, and with the stricter rules for compliance in the U.S., many organizations want their documents to always look the same and be the same, and that’s where we come in. We help organizations provide the templates so the content is the same for every end user. Everyone who creates the document starts from the same place; only the parts they fill in are different.”
This negates the risk of individualization – employees unsure of which templates to use may adapt their own, leading to inconsistency and, potentially, compliance or data entry errors. With SmartDocuments, everything is kept in one location and operates independently of other programs, streamlining processes and improving quality control. Secure integration with key data sources ensures documents contain the right data, and for EMS organizations, SmartDocuments can use the data from various back office and case management solutions to populate users’ documents. Templates and documents also comply with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), extending usability to those with disabilities, which may be required in some jurisdictions.
Implementing the system made an immediate difference at California’s Contra Costa County EMS.
EMS PROCESSES GET FASTER
Part of the integrated Contra Costa Health system, Contra Costa County EMS does a lot more than just run calls. Its document needs also involve areas like tracking and communicating around providers’ licenses and renewals; seeking and maintaining needed certifications and accreditations; investigating misconduct; and overseeing the county’s public safety first aid program.
Those diverse duties fall primarily to Ben Keizer, the service’s prehospital care coordinator. It’s a job that requires accuracy and efficiency as he pivots from area to area.
“We send out a good amount of notices daily in the agency – for example, in investigations and to renew, cancel or revoke licenses,” Keizer said. “We also create complex legal documents for accusations and pleading documents. Aside from the documents we send out to the people we license and regulate, we also put out memos and bulletins to the public.”
At one point that entailed a library of Word templates, roughly organized by category. Keizer followed the familiar process of searching for the one he needed, opening it, saving a copy, then making his modifications. He saved a few seconds with advance highlighting of areas in the templates that would need changing, but accuracy and standardization were both ongoing concerns.
“We’d find our accuracy was lowered because we would manually adjust each piece of a document, and mistakes slip in easily,” Keizer recalled. “We would spend a lot of time to get a template out, and we’d end up with little variations between templates and forget which one was the correct one. So not only did it take a long time, we were not as accurate as we wanted to be.”
Implementing SmartDocuments resolved those concerns with standardized templates that prepopulate with key data points with just a click. And because Contra Costa County EMS often generates multiple iterations of the same documents, it uses SmartDocuments’ Multi-Document Output module, which lets Keizer do things like batch the service’s EMT license notifications and turn out hundreds of notices in minutes.
“Before we had to segment based on different license statuses,” Keizer explained. “Now SmartDocuments processes the data from an external database, recognizes the license status and automatically populates different data points in various documents. From here we output it, and it goes to our DMS [document management system] or other repository to get processed.”
The public notifications required of a government agency are produced similarly, as are other key legal documents.
“Those documents can be 10–20 pages long and often include legal terminology,” noted Erents. “The documents also contain variables such as case numbers, EMT certification numbers and personal information, including names and addresses. When you open a template, the recurring information of that document is already there and formatted correctly. The primary focus for the end user is on the variables, which can be filled out through a questionnaire-style interface that has been created and customized by the template builder.”
KEY COMPONENTS
SmartDocuments templates have designated owners who manage their creation and updates, as well as controlling access. Users can thus be permitted to customize content but not change standing text or visual components. Templates and users can be segmented for access on an as-needed basis.
The templates themselves have four main aspects:
- Visual identity, which ensures consistent branding and look (e.g., colors, fonts, type sizes, spacing, etc.).
- Body template, or the main text. SmartDocuments allows rules that show and hide specific text elements, facilitating creation of multiple versions of documents with small differences – for example, employment contracts with job-specific details – under a single template.
- Building blocks, recurring elements frequently used in document construction. Blocks can be used in multiple templates. They mean if something like a business phone number changes, you only have to change it once, rather than across every template.
- The data and variables that populate the templates. Users can enter information manually via the Q&A wizard or automatically using data queries, XML or API.
The SmartDocuments system for managing templates is organized into three areas:
- SmartControl provides central administration and manages visual identity, user rights, building blocks, individual modules and system settings.
- SmartEditor is the template builder tool; it lets users start from a Word document and build out questions for the SmartWizard. Questions can include yes/no, multiple choice, numerical, free text and qualifying responses, with follow-up questions and branching logic.
- The SmartWizard is the interface with which end users answer those questions and produce their documents. Validation checks and automated data entry features reduce their risk of errors. All components are intuitive and can be used without extensive training.
SmartDocuments integrates with numerous key third-party systems, including those for document management, workflow, business process management, case management and more. Besides multidocument output, other add-on modules allow active directory synchronization, data queries, email plug-ins, high-volume production, redaction and XML/JSON functionality.
The platform is also suitable for use in hospitals, fire departments, health and other government departments and by other entities that produce numerous or complex documents. For more information, visit SmartDocuments.
