She said the hospital looked at OCR systems to scan records electronically, but those solutions remained immature. The microfilm system certainly saved space, but it offered no operation improvement over paper - which prompted the hospital to look for a new solution. In 2002, the hospital signed a contract with Hyland for OnBase, which promised to dramatically improve workflows and processes as well as provide safer, more secure storage for medical records.

Today, documents stored in OnBase include all medical records such as consultation, radiology, lab results as well as video files. According to Danish law medical records need to be kept for 15 years and some must be kept permanently.

"We implemented OnBase in 2003 because it was a Web-based solution," Kotsis explained. In addition to requiring little training - after all, Web browsers are commonplace � using OnBase also didn't require upgrades to the hospital's 3,000 PCs.

Hyland's Healthcare Business Solutions Manager, Susan deCathelineau, said one of Odense's requirements was to integrate with existing systems. "We can capture content at the point of care, at registration, or at multiple departments within a healthcare organization," she said. "At Odense, the end user can use OnBase directly or integrated into its electronic medical record."

Already, the hospital has converted former storage space into consultation areas. "Instead of going into a room where there are two to four other patients, a doctor can now take a patient into a private room for consultation," she explained. "In the medical records department, we have also used the space for other purposes."