November 6 was World Paper Free Day, sponsored by our friends at AIIM International, who also issued their annual report on how organizations are making progress removing paper from their processes. We celebrated the progress made by many organizations in reducing the paperwork and replacing paper with digital processes.
Two days later, the Washington Post ran a story about the failure of the immigration service's 10 year $1 billion program to replace its antiquated paper processes with a system of digitized records, online applications, and a full suite of nearly 100 electronic forms.
"All that officials have to show for the effort is a single online application form and one fee that immigrants can pay electronically. The 94 other forms can be filed only with paper. Processing immigration applications now involves shipping paper documents across the country, and delays are legend. A single missing or misplaced form can set back an approval by months."
I have a dog in this hunt, as they say at ibml HQ in Alabama. I'm trying to bring my English fiancee into the USA under a visa program and have first-hand experience with the byzantine paperwork process. We're lucky so far that we submitted all the paperwork properly, and nothing was lost. And I am truly thankful for all the nameless and faceless government workers behind the scenes who diligently shuffled our paperwork from office to office and country to country.
But many families are not so lucky, and this could get much worse. “Oh, God help us,’’ said a former immigration services official. “If there is immigration reform, they are going to be overwhelmed.’’
This story is another example of why it is so hard to go paper-free. Even if the Immigration Service were to get all the forms online, the process is still not close to paper-free! There are still dozens of other document types required for immigration applications that come from diverse sources and in many formats. How will those documents be captured and digitized?
Maybe someday, all documents will be digital and online. Until then, we have much work to do, and today we can deploy solutions that will make a real difference in these paper-bound processes.
Organizations that find themselves in a similar dilemma can start by implementing a digital mailroom solution that kills the paper at the point of entry, and from that point on, provides instant online access to all documents in an immigration case file. No more shipping case files from desk to desk, office to office, or even country to country. No more lost or missing documents. Fewer delays = faster family reunions.
It will be too late for my fiancee and me to benefit from this process improvement, but we would love to see other families receive a better opportunity to be reunited in the most efficient and timely way possible.
