Recently a pediatrician in the US had to shell out a hefty fine of $7.5 million for medical negligence which led to the death of a child. The doctor had failed to maintain appropriate medical records of the patient, as mandated by the US law, owing to which a pediatrician and neurologist treated the child without being aware of her degenerative heart condition.
The incident highlights, the importance of maintaining accurate and up-to-date medical records. But this is easier said than done. Maintaining paper-based records is expensive, error prone, labor intensive, and extremely difficult to process. Furthermore most hospitals don’t have the resources to maintain such huge cache of records.
Medical Document Indexing Can Help to Overcome this Problem
The answer lies in digitizing all health related documents. This will not only accelerate patient care, but also improve the quality of care, and enhance record management capabilities while ensuring regulatory compliance. But opting to digitize all the documents in-house is not a good idea. This is because in-house medical record scanning and indexing of large volumes of paper-based medical records will cost medical practices dearly. While on one hand they will have to deal with dreadful time constrains and accuracy of scan capture, on the other hand departmental costs and staffing difficulties can cause efficiency to take a hit.
Much of these troubles can be avoided by outsourcing this non-core function to a specialist. Like the cavalry, these specialized service providers will go through all the hurdles to get the job done, giving your troops the leg space to carry out things that they do best—taking care of patients. In addition, this move will help you reap the benefits of cost savings and improved efficiency. Critical information that previously took hours to audit can now be processed within seconds, eliminating potential errors and improving overall patient care.
And that is not it! Medical records must be handled safely and in accordance with US regulations even during the scanning, shipping and storage processes. And hiring a specialist is one of the safest ways of accomplishing it. An outsourced medical record scanning and indexing service provider will also perform routine checks to ensure all your records meet mandatory requirements, and will partner with you to develop processes to streamline medical doc management.
The Bottom-line:
Digitizing medical records in-house may be cost justifiable for small practices with a just a few beds and relatively low volume of paper. But for healthcare settings serving more than 100 beds, outsourcing medical record indexing services is the best way to get highest quality returns at a lower price.
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