Business Spotlight: Archiving business keeps up with industry trends

When Rick Barnhouse, owner of Micro Innovations Inc., Debbie Boothe, Dan Hutchinson and Diana Stokes decided to start Micro Innovations Inc. in 1989, they never imagined their company would achieve its current level of success.

The company, which specializes in source document imaging, originally was located on Grand Street in Springfield and had 12 employees, including the four who started the company.

In 1991, the company moved into a new 12,000-square-foot facility in Nixa. At the time, they wondered if the company really needed so much space.

As it turned out, Micro Innovations needed the space and more. Today operations span more than 76,000 square feet, and the company employs 180 workers.

"The company has grown between 30 percent to 40 percent every year since we've opened," said Stokes, who serves as the company's president. "We've just finished construction on a new building, and we're already looking at adding more space."

Market demand has helped drive the company's rapid expansion. Micro Innovations provides source document archiving services to hospitals and other information-sensitive businesses, which for professional, ethical, or legal reasons must guard their clients' confidentiality. Although the company does store paper documents in a secure environment, most paper documents are converted to microfilm or electronic images. In recent months, clients also have been given the option for storing their data at a secure site on the Internet.

The company has established many safeguards to ensure that medical, legal, or other documents remain confidential. Micro Innovations owns three trucks, which pick up clients' documents and deliver them to the company's facility for processing. Once the documents arrive at Micro Innovations, they are sorted and cataloged so they can be tracked during every stage of the conversion process.

"We take on a custodial responsibility once a document comes into our possession," Stokes said. "Once a hospital gives us a medical record, we have to know where it is at all times. If we get a call from a hospital in Colorado at 2 a.m. wanting information from John Smith's medical record, which we have, we have to be able to locate that record quickly so the hospital can get the information they need."

Although the federal government doesn't currently regulate how medical, legal and other confidential documents are handled and stored, all of Micro Innovations' clients expect 100 percent confidentiality as well as fast, reliable service. According to Jason Barnhouse, vice president of operations, Micro Innovations has developed a reputation for providing quality service over the years, which also has helped contribute to the company's rapid growth.

The company's quality assurance department reviews each job to make sure the conversion work was done correctly. Each document is checked to make sure it is readable and that no information is obscured.

"This is a service-oriented business," Jason Barnhouse said. "We go out of our way to provide the best service we can, and right now, we have a 97 percent client retention rate."

Micro Innovations is one of only a few companies that offers four separate storage products: paper document storage, microfilm, electronic imaging and online data warehousing, according to Torrey Barnhouse, vice president of sales and marketing. Being able to offer four products also gives the company a competitive edge because it allows clients to switch formats without switching companies.

Micro Innovations' client base extends from North Dakota to Texas and from Indiana to Colorado.

"When we talk about expansion, we're not just referring to building space, the territory we cover, or even the number of workers we employ," Torrey Barnhouse said. "Part of continued expansion for us also will come through identifying trends in source document archiving and being able to offer new technology to our clients. We are well positioned to be the leaders in this industry for many years."