Records Management: THE Critical Program For Patient Safety And Business Success

By Melissa Carlis, Océ Business Services

Managing information in the form of data, documents and records is arguably one of the most crucial activities for healthcare providers. Making critical strategic decisions, serving patients and their families, ensuring HIPAA compliance, and processing admissions, prescription, clinician and insurance transactions all depend on information that is easily accessible and entirely precise. Most large providers create entire departments to maximize the value of that information, and help employees quickly and easily access it to make better decisions.

But while most healthcare providers recognize the value of effectively managing information, many of them do not dedicate the necessary resources to an important subset of this activity − records management. This is despite the fact that successfully handling, transmitting and maintaining electronic health records that include patient charts with medical diagnoses, prescriptions and related information is critical for a number of important reasons. These include supporting effective compliance with healthcare industry regulations, risk management, reputation protection and strategic decision making.

Melissa Carlis is director of records development for Océ Business Services, a leader in managed business process services. For more information visit www.ocesolutions.com.

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