Most of an organization’s information is stored in unstructured medical records with cursive handwriting. By using a new technology that understands how the documents are used and what role they play, you can classify and extract more information from both handwritten and machine-printed documents. Courtney Rand will focus his discussion around the toughest challenges in optimizing forms processing and medical records management today—unstructured document processing and handwritten cursive recognition—and the new generation of technology available to solve these problems. This presentation will explain the state of current automatic classification technologies, how they interact with recognition technologies, and explain how to implement such a system with maximum functionality and results.

Rand will discuss Intelligent Word Recognition (IWR), a lies at the heart of his company’s recognition software products and is optimized for processing data on real-world documents that contain mostly free-form, hard-to-recognize handwriting. The best use of IWR is to eliminate a high percentage of the manual entry of handwritten data on documents that otherwise could be keyed only by humans. IWR differs from Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) primarily in that conventional ICR technology recognizes data fundamentally at the character level, while IWR recognizes data at the word or “field” level. A2iA’s IWR engine is capable of extracting all types of field-based information from a form - either constrained (machine print, hand-printed capitals) or unconstrained (freeform hand print, cursive) from virtually any type of document.
The IWR process of converting a written word into computer-usable data occurs in a series of top-down stages. IWR provides a competitive advantage for operations that rely on the conversion of paperwork into computer-usable form, such as data entry departments of big government agencies, large financial institutions, and service bureaus. In many cases, IWR can automate data entry at a cost so low that it enables A2iA customers to successfully compete against offshore service bureaus located in countries such as India and China