Scanning of Medical Records

 

Technology is an essential part of every industry today. Just by looking around, technology has quite empowered everything. One of the reasons that technology has been considered important is that it made every job easier than before. It has made appointments convenient and faster. No matter the company or business size, technology helps ease all transactions and jobs. Furthermore, technology is a big help in the ability of the business to communicate with customers.

Moving forward, medical records are important documents as it puts in both the doctor's and patient’s best interest. It helps doctors track all the procedures done on the patient. With a thorough medical record, the chances of errors while undergoing the treatment process are slim. Good documentation records facts that have been done to the patient. This includes procedures done by whom and when was it administered. According to New York State Society for Clinical Work, compiling clinical details into one place helps the medical practitioners’ memory regarding crucial events during a patient's treatment process.

 

However, there are still medical practitioners who have not embraced technology. Some are still using the old method of data cards where the doctor writes data during the process of treatment or check-ups. Now, there are plenty of reasons why digitizing medical records and having a document management system is needed.

 

• Access and storage – Storing all the patients' written data requires a lot of space. Sorting records is tedious and entails effort and time. With the number of patients growing and the demands pouring in, people in the medical field cannot risk being behind in their duties and responsibilities. If a certain patient wants to see his medical record, it would be a big hassle for someone to go to the records room and search manually among a ton of papers. That is why digitizing records is practical and easier.

 

• Security – Medical records have personal information in them. Aside from that, it has information that cannot be made public. Additionally, leaking this information results in legal action from the patients’ side. That is why having medical records or information digitize minimizes the risk of such records being read by others.

 

• Readability/Accuracy – It is often found as a joke that doctors' handwriting is the most difficult to read. That is why it takes an ample amount of time for pharmacists to master reading doctor’s prescriptions. However, digitizing medical records will eliminate this problem. If medical practitioners needed to review a patient’s medical record, it would be a walk in the park as it is readable and more accurate compared to handwritten notes.

 

• Track patient progress – When medical records are digitized, it requires less space but more information can be noted. For instance, one can never remember his weight or blood pressure from the last check-up. This may be small details but it is vital information every time the patient visits the physician. Digitized medical records can help physicians track down the progress of the patient even to the smallest detail needed.

 

• DOH Compliance - The Department of Health requires hospitals to submit statistical data. These datasets are cumbersome and costly to produce without a Document Management System, but these datasets are very important for the health of the population and it needs to be done.

• Data Analytics - Medical Directors can get a lot of information from data mining medical records.  If records are properly coded to ICD 10, Medical Directors can get a glimpse of the largest numbers of cases, and make the appropriate investments in equipment.

  Hospital marketing teams can also get a lot of information from data mining. (From finding out where patients are from, age brackets, top diseases, and procedures to date).

 

Technology today is the best thing that has ever happened to humanity. It may have its pros and cons but it has made our lives easier. There is no need to fear the growing technology. We all should embrace it and be thankful for the great minds that have helped mankind achieve everything conveniently.