DWCNewsline




Newsline No. 06-10                                                                                                     

February 16, 2010



One million document batches successfully processed into EAMS

The Division of Workers’ Compensation has successfully processed one million document
batches into the Electronic Adjudication Management System (EAMS), achieving this milestone
in less than a year and a half since the case management system was activated.



The batches contain data transmitted from scanner-ready optical character recognition (OCR)
paper documents submitted to the division’s 24 district offices around the state. Filers
download the OCR forms from the DWC Web site and, after filling them in, submit them to the
nearest district office. There the forms are scanned and, if filled out properly by the submitting
entity or individual, processed into EAMS where they become part of the official court file for
each workers’ compensation case.



“Scanning of these documents means new cases are created, workflow is generated, tasks are
created and assigned, and hearings are set, all electronically, without creation of any paper
files,” states Joel Harter, presiding judge for the Sacramento district office. “The staffs at the
district offices have been doing a magnificent job at processing the incoming documents
through scanning and completion.”



The district offices with the highest activity since go live were Los Angeles , Marina del Rey and
Van Nuys, with 140,536 batches processed, 130,089 batches processed, and 126,712
batches processed, respectively as of January 26, 2010. Each batch can contain any number
of documents, ranging from one or two for a simple lien to maybe dozens of documents for
complex settlements.



When EAMS made its debut in August 2008, filers were permitted to use the pre-EAMS forms,
which required DWC staff to manually enter data into the system. In December 2008, these
“legacy forms” were phased out (with a few exceptions), and OCR forms became mandatory,
except for participants in the e-forms trial, who file electronically.



EAMS reached the one million mark on documents successfully processed by EAMS at the end
of 2009.



“Currently, the district offices statewide are scanning in over 4,000 batches, containing over
9,000 documents per day,” says Judge Harter.



E-forms are also entered into EAMS in batches, albeit at a much lower rate reflecting the
smaller numbers of e-form filers. To date, 124,249 e-form batches have been successfully
processed.



Documents that are not successfully processed go into the unprocessed document queue
(UDQ), where they must be examined by staff to determine the error or errors. This causes
delays in getting documents into the system and also requires more staff involvement. As the
processing has become more efficient, the number of documents going into the UDQ has gone
down.



For more information about OCR form filing and e-form filing, visit the EAMS Web site at www.
dwc.ca.gov/eams.