Commitment + Clinical Leadership = Better Outcomes

To use paper, or not to use paper: that is the question many businesses are asking themselves as the world becomes more and more connected to the internet.

Americans use 85,000,000 tons of paper each year, with the average American using 680 pounds. What’s more is that Americans are not recycling all of their leftovers: the average household was found to throw away 13,000 individual pieces of paper each year, mostly from packaging and junk mail each year.¹

There are many reasons to switch to a paperless lifestyle, from conserving energy to reducing waste in our landfills. Here are 5 benefits of going paperless.

Documents Are More Accessible

One benefit of a company switching to paperless is documents are more accessible to people in the organization. According to Record Nations, employees can spend up to 2 hours searching for files a day. Managers can spend up to 4 weeks looking for misplaced documents or lost information.²

In a paperless system, people no longer need to search through a filing cabinet or worry about the document they need being in the hands of a coworker. With a digital system, everyone can access what they need with the click of a button.

Your company can design an online system that makes documents easy to save and share. You can use naming conventions and folders to keep documents digitally organized.

Conserve Energy

One benefit of going paperless is it can conserve energy, which will have a positive impact on the environment.

Each ton of paper has the opportunity to save:¹

• 17 trees
• 380 gallons of oil
• three cubic yards of landfill space
• 4000 kilowatts of energy
• 7000 gallons of water

This equals 64% energy savings, 58% water savings, and 60 less pounds of air pollution!

If your business can contribute to reducing the amount of trees cut down, that can help save energy and reduce the amount of trash that goes into the landfill each year.

Save Money

Reducing the amount of paper your company uses can have enormous cost savings. When companies buy paper, they have to invest in filing cabinets, folders, printers, ink, and shredding machines. It’s estimated that companies spend an average of $80 on paper each year per employee.³

It’s been found that for every $1 spent on printing, another $6 is spent on distribution. And if a company needs to recreate a document, it costs $180.²

Office spaces are usually big because they need storage areas for all of this equipment. It is estimated 50-70% of an office’s available space is dedicated to storing paper.⁴ There are also some positions where the primary role is to sort and find papers.

If your company is able to implement a secure digital cloud to store files, many of these costs can be eliminated. This can help your business save money while staying eco-friendly.

Improved Security

When everything is printed out, there is the potential for employees to take home important or confidential documents. This can result in theft or accidental sharing of proprietary information.

However, documents are more secure if they are saved to an online server. There is a digital trail of who edits what document, as well as a record when they are moved or deleted. This will allow your company to ensure that your employees don’t tamper with the data, and your system can also create backups of important files just in case.

There are also ways to restrict access to certain documents by giving people special permissions or passwords. This allows your company to further protect private documents from others in the company who should not be accessing, reading, or editing them.

Company Perception

As more people are educated about the environment and the importance of conserving our resources, they are more likely to support companies that promote being environmentally friendly.

It’s been found that 77% of Americans are concerned about the environmental impact of the products they buy. Of these, 68% are willing to pay for a more environmentally friendly product.⁵

There is also a positive impact on company morale when it comes to going paperless. A survey by Green Business Bureau found that 79% of employees would prefer to work for a company with strong environmental policies.⁶

Saber Healthcare and Paperless

Here at Saber Healthcare, our company is striving to go paperless by 2023. We see value in reducing the amount of waste in the landfills and conserving energy to help keep our planet green.

To learn more about Saber Healthcare and the services we provide, click here.

Saber Healthcare is an organization dedicated to providing consultant services to long term care providers. This article is for informational purposes and is not meant to be seen as professional advice. Please consult with a medical expert before relying on the information provided.

Sources

1. “Paper Recycling Facts.” University of Southern Indiana. Accessed 13 December 2021. Link: https://www.usi.edu/recycle/paper-recycling-facts/#:~:text=Americans%20use%2085%2C000%2C000%20tons%20of,is%20packaging%20and%20junk%20mail.
2. Choi, Ken. “The Paperless Office: How Much You Can Save.” Record Nations. Accessed 13 December 2021. Link: https://www.recordnations.com/2018/04/paperless-office-save/
3. “HOW WILL GOING PAPERLESS SAVE YOU MONEY?” Sysdyne Technologies. Accessed 13 December 2021. Link: https://sysdynetechnologies.com/save-money-going-paperless/
4. Harter, Ashley. “The ROI for Going Paperless.” ANVL. 17 August 2021. Accessed 13 December 2021. Link: https://anvl.com/blog/roi-for-going-paperless/
5. Carufel, Richard. “Consumers prefer eco-friendly products, but don’t know how to identify them.” Agility PR Solutions. 8 April 2021. Accessed 13 December 2021. Link: https://www.agilitypr.com/pr-news/public-relations/consumers-prefer-eco-friendly-products-but-dont-know-how-to-identify-them/#:~:text=The%20first%2Dever%20edition%20of,clearly%20labeled%20as%20environmentally%20friendly.
6. “GOING PAPERLESS: A GUIDE TO GREEN IT.” Turn-key Technologies. 13 December 2021. Link: https://www.turn-keytechnologies.com/blog/article/going-paperless-a-guide-to-green-it-2/