Hill-Rom

Challenge

Hill-Rom, a leading provider of medical products and services worldwide, was struggling to find a more effective way to handle all of their technical documentation needs. Some of the challenges Hill-Rom faced included:

• Long development and update cycles
• Inability to search effectively across different products
• Multiple products with large documentation sets that encompassed external manuals, internal guides, datasheets and online help
• Multiple target audiences both internal and external to the company
• Large, unmanageable documents (1,500+ pages)

Since Hill-Rom’s products are FDA-regulated, their documentation must conform to specific content requirements and established labeling and document control processes. Hill-Rom needed a solution that would help them efficiently create, maintain, and manage all of their technical documentation without the cost and effort associated with implementing a high-dollar content management platform. Hill-Rom engaged Contiem to analyze their current processes and tools, and develop a solution to centralize and streamline the entire process.

Solution

Contiem worked closely with Hill-Rom to design a solution that addressed the needs of the different target audiences – internal users, such as sales and product managers, and external users, such as the physicians and nurses, who would use Hill-Rom products – while also driving efficiencies in both the development and maintenance of all product documentation. A single-source solution was ideal due to the amount of content shared across the many documents.

DITA XML provides the requisite flexibility, supports multiple output types (PDF, HTML), and allows writers to develop information in smaller, more manageable sections. Contiem recommended Hill-Rom use the DITA Open Toolkit paired with a content management application already in use by Hill-Rom Engineering to develop two Information Centers: one for Hill-Rom employees, and one for Hill-Rom’s external users. Hill-Rom engaged Contiem to develop the two Information Centers. Contiem information architects designed the system while Contiem technical writers worked on the development of the content. The Contiem project manager oversaw the entire project, which allowed Hill-Rom personnel to stay focused on their core business.

Result

Hill-Rom received two Information Centers that encompass internal and external information. Use of the Information Centers has achieved the following measurable results:

• An average of 30% content reuse across most documents, with some deliverables achieving 70-90% content reuse
• A 50% reduction in the page count of the larger documents
• A single-sourced platform that easily generates content in multiple formats for different audiences
• A streamlined development process and shorter update cycles versus updating content in multiple places
• Internal and external customer satisfaction with the new system