Healthcare Content Management vs. Document Management

Many potential users of the JiveX Healthcare Content Management system rightly ask: Why should HCM be better than my well-established DMS? The answers to that are given in this second series of our blog series "HCM SPELLED OUT".

IT experts who have already engaged with JiveX Healthcare Content Management frequently object that the processes can also be mapped well using established systems - notably DMS.

And they are not entirely wrong in saying that. After all, practically every healthcare facility possesses components today that are also to be found in JiveX HCM. But that's precisely the tipping-point: Functions such as those of a good DMS are just part areas, and what's missing are the connecting elements and the superstructure.

HCM keeps the bigger whole in view

Software solutions are mostly developed for a clearly-defined purpose. In case of the document management system, the name tells you what it does: It manages documents. If you are looking at how a document is handled over its entire lifecycle, from its creation through to approval, archiving and management, DMS is an excellent choice.

But patient-centered medical information comprises more than simply documents. In order to fully map a patient and/or case as a whole, it also includes images, signal data or videos too. And this is where DMS generally comes up short. Even if it is able to archive such files, the system fails to present and manage all data in a meaningful way.

JiveX HCM is pursuing a totally different objective: It bundles all available information within a system in order to manage, process and consider it together. In other words, in its functionality JiveX kicks in after a document has been created. To that extent, the two systems operate in a complementary manner to one another. So there is no either-or question.

Using DMS and HCM in parallel

Anyone who is successfully using a DMS can also use it in parallel with JiveX HCM and map the document process accordingly. At the latest when documents are approved, though, they belong in JiveX HCN, in order that they complete the other medical information there and can be displayed via the JiveX Multiformat Viewer in parallel with it.

And don't forget that the JiveX Healthcare Content Management system is only used for medical data. All administrative data continues to be safely stored in a DMS.