As the private sector pushes full steam ahead with digitized forms and
contracts, some government agencies are not far behind, excelling at
paperless workstreams. However, other agencies lag in efficiency and cost,
weighed down by the heavy strain of physical paperwork.
In all industries, physical paperwork is costly and burdensome, and the
consequences can be serious. Emergency hospital responses to the
COVID-19 health crisis in New York City, for example, were slowed by a
glut of paper-based documents that bottlenecked operations and
decreased agility.1,2 However, the quantity of paperwork involved in
government operations is often more egregious than in other industries,
causing bureaucratic redundancies, inefficient citizen services, and
monetary waste.