WEST CALDWELL, N.J., Oct. 3, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Ricoh Americas Corporation, a leading provider of digital office equipment and advanced document management solutions, is spotlighting its range of solutions to better manage healthcare information this week at the AHIMA Convention & Exhibit, a major event in Salt Lake City for health information professionals.

Ricoh offers deep experience in the healthcare vertical, having provided services to over 700 U.S. hospitals in the past two decades. Better focus on document management and information infrastructure has the potential to yield significant financial benefits. In one case, the use of Ricoh Healthcare services saved the University of Louisville Hospital $1.6 million over a five year period.

At AHIMA, Ricoh unveiled its Ricoh Rapid Process Assessment (RPA) business process analysis methodology as part of the Ricoh Healthcare portfolio. Ricoh RPA is designed as a first step for helping clients with disparate technologies and manual paper-based processes to jumpstart their improvement initiatives.

Ricoh RPA uncovers a healthcare organization's most pressing needs in information management staffing, technology and methods, providing a current state picture and roadmap to help drive measurable improvement. Subsequent process redesign, re-engineering and enabling technologies can help eliminate silos that slow information delivery and burden clinicians and administrators.

"The first step in solving a problem is defining the problem as thoroughly and objectively as possible," said Jon Elwell, Vice President, Healthcare for Ricoh U.S. "This way, the solution fits the need rather than forcing everyone to adapt to an arbitrary new process enforced by a new technology. Sound methods like Ricoh RPA fills this need for our healthcare customers."

Uniquely tailored assessments

Just one instrument in the Ricoh Healthcare toolset, Ricoh RPA includes discrete benchmarking for comparison with other hospital systems, predictive modeling, and process analytics that verify findings and identify cost-saving opportunities. Designed specifically for healthcare, Ricoh RPA uniquely tailors assessments for every department and process within a healthcare organization. It also leverages Six Sigma quality management principles.

Solutions include a performance management framework with key performance indicators (KPIs) for continuous improvement. And because assessments often cover processes that cross departmental boundaries, recommendations may include consolidation of operations into shared services infrastructures that create economies of scale.

Ricoh can work with organizations to prescribe customized department-specific and healthcare-enterprise-wide solutions for managed document services and enterprise document management, as well as on-site and off-site managed services, technical services and support, and customized workflow design and implementation. RPA and other Ricoh Healthcare solutions are specifically designed to help organizations:

• Improve operational processes and workflow efficiency
• Share electronic patient records across the healthcare enterprise
• Remotely access patient information
• Improve patient data capture for meaningful use
• Better contain or reduce document management costs
• Establish a more efficient and effective information infrastructure

Visit Ricoh at AHIMA in booth 1831.  For more information on Ricoh Healthcare solutions, visit www.ricoh-usa.com/healthcare.

About Ricoh Americas Corporation

Ricoh Americas Corporation, headquartered in West Caldwell, N.J., is a subsidiary of Ricoh Company, Ltd., the 75-year-old leading provider of advanced office technology and innovative document imaging products, services and software, with fiscal year 2010 sales in excess of $23 billion.

Ricoh's fully integrated hardware and customizable services and software help businesses share information efficiently and effectively by enabling customers to control the input, management and output of documents.

Ricoh Americas Corporation, directly or through its network of authorized dealers, markets and distributes products in North, Central and South America.

Information about Ricoh's complete range of offerings can be found at www.ricoh-usa.com.

© 2011 Ricoh Americas Corporation.  All rights reserved. All referenced product names are the trademarks of their respective companies.

SOURCE Ricoh Americas Corporation