Everybody's Doing It

Going paperless, I mean. The AZ Republic has an article about Gilbert's police department using up to the moment information as they patrol and serve:

The Gilbert Police Department is having success with a computer system that officers say helps shorten response times, increases the amount of time they spend patrolling the town's streets and improves their ability to investigate and prevent crimes.

Police began using the computer-aided dispatch and records management system in March 2005, a process that required much officer training and the addition of upgraded equipment after years of planning by retired police Cmdr. Jim Brad.

"It's a major change," said Lt. Joe Ruet, a Gilbert police spokesman.

Now, officers can look up crime trends and intelligence data that are constantly updated, not months old, Ruet said.

Investigators instantly pull up a suspect's criminal history, aliases, physical description and detailed information on other crimes that might be related to the offense police think the suspect committed.

Because police reports are entered directly into the records system by officers and their supervisors, police no longer have to wait for data entry clerks to process information or physically pull it from files for investigators.

As soon as dispatchers begin entering data from a 911 call, the information is available in the records system. In the past, the computer-aided dispatch system was not integrated with the records management system, making for a far more tedious reporting process, Ruet said.

The article goes on to detail the department's intent to be proactive in fighting crime, and strategies for property theft. Sounds good to me.

And not to be left behind, the medical community is trending this way as well. A companion article in the Business section of the paper alerts small to midsize primary care physicians to some training:

Hoping to help doctors switch from manila folders to electronic health records, a Valley health care consulting group is launching a series of free training sessions on the new technology.

Health Services Advisory Group of Phoenix will offer an introduction to electronic health records, or EHRs, on Feb. 28 and a more detailed "EHR University" from March through June. The sessions are open to primary care physicians and their staffers in small to midsize practices.

The training is being offered free under the group's contract with the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The need for this is obvious:

Although financial services and airlines have embraced information technology, health care is probably the largest industry still wedded to paper records. But the push is on to change that.

As a mom with four kids, I can only say hear, hear! How many times have I had to fill out 4 identical forms with nearly identical information in a doctor's office, while trying to keep an eye on 4 rambunctious kids; and then do exactly the same thing on the next visit - "to update our records." I longed for the opportunity to fill out one form and then let the computer split out the individualized information on each kid. It did enhance my memory skills, as I had everyone's social security number memorized, as well as insurance numbers (which I always double checked anyway, just to be safe) and the dates of every broken bone, surgery, or childhood disease.

And the update on Morrison Ranch's quest for paperless simplicity? It marches on; I learn new things about our system every day, and I retrieve documents all the time. In fact, I find myself irritated when something is not in the system and I have to track down the paper version. I am currently in the process of importing prior years' tax returns electronically, as the current year for each entity is prepared. I have filed tax returns electronically for several years, but storing them electronically is new and different, and I have to convince myself of the safety of those files every time I do it.

There is still a fair amount of setup for the documents used most by The Mister and Bias For Action, and that will be a more gradual process, it's turning out. But one of The Mister's finer qualities has affected my outlook on such things: persistence. I will see it through.