Forms Processing Solution Jolts Pharmaceutical Vertical

Getting samples of pharmaceuticals into the hands of physicians for evaluation is the responsibility of companies like ProtoCall, a division of PDI Shared Sales (Upper Saddle River, NJ). The company helps pharmaceutical manufacturers market new products and improve the profitability of existing medicines. To track each drug sample provided to physicians, ProtoCall's sales force completes a handwritten tracking card customized by each drug company. There are 15 types of cards, each including two pre-printed fields and as many as 10 to 12 handwritten fields of information including checkboxes, dates, quantities, etc.

The original data capture process required the company's 500 field representatives to mail completed cards to ProtoCall headquarters. The cards were scanned, checked against established business rules, corrected, and then validated with respect to the company's drug and practitioner database. The company needed an infrastructure that could operate much faster and offer editing capabilities beyond just character recognition. The next-generation system had to incorporate automated data validations and improve efficiencies throughout the company.

Capture Thousands Of Forms A Day
ProtoCall selected a data capture solution based on Kofax Ascent Capture, Ascent Advanced Forms Processing Modules, and VRS image enhancement. ProtoCall had been using Kofax on a Bell & Howell 6338 scanner since 1997; however, the company felt that new Kofax forms modules would enhance the system. Using the new forms processing components, ProtoCall has been able to convert scanned document images into clean and verified data for export into the company's document and content management systems.

Unlike the prior system that required each form type to be scanned as a separate batch, the new implementation allows a single batch to contain multiple forms. ProtoCall uses a Bell & Howell 8080D scanner with Kofax VRS technology to scan each form type automatically, determine optimum exposure settings, and convert forms into highly readable, black-and-white images. With the help of Kofax, ProtoCall increased the number of forms captured to as many as 4,000 per day.