Sustainability Success Story: Sending and signing provider contracts digitally leads to environmental benefits

When Jaclyn Zastrow, a senior executive assistant for Aspirus Health's corporate administration, started processing provider contract documents last March, the task required her to send duplicate paper copies of each contract, addendum, or memo to the provider along with a cover letter and self-addressed envelope. Document delivery was by interoffice mail, certified US Mail or FedEx.

“It felt time consuming and wasteful,” Jaclyn says. “Two paper copies of each document, two envelopes and a cover letter, not to mention my time and the carbon emissions created by continued transporting of these items across the country by mail.”

Rather than stick with the status quo, Jaclyn:

• Explored electronic processing options.
• Got stakeholders on board.
• Developed a procedure for using DocuSign, a digital signature technology that makes it easy to send and sign documents online, for which Aspirus already had a corporate account.

Since November 18, she’s processed over 100 contract documents with only one needing to be mailed as a paper copy.

“Everyone I’ve worked with in the process has been excited and appreciative,” she says. “I hope my story will inspire others to take similar efforts.”

Environmental savings across all users of the Aspirus DocuSign account: