Patient records, as all records, should be treated securely

June 4, 2013

As healthcare facilities move closer to the Meaningful Use deadline, the time when hospitals will be penalized for not having electronic medical records (EMR), those that have not already made the transition should considering doing so in the next year.

However, while adopting electronic medical records is a legal issue for this industry, are these records that much different than those in other sectors? Should securing patient records be seen as more important than the security of financial or government records? One AIIM blogger says no—security and compliance should be a priority for all electronic record keeping.

In a post, Bob Larrivee, a director and industry advisor for AIIM explained that while medical records should be treated with a high level of security, “they are still records nonetheless and just like any information requiring security and access controls, retention and disposition guidelines, they are still records and should be treated as such.”

All records, he wrote, require a high level of technology and properly trained people for the most accurate electronic record keeping. Many times, a document scanning service can provide both of these advantages, as well as many more, that individual companies need for high-quality record keeping practices.

For companies with a high level of records, partnering with a bulk scanning service can help, regardless of whether records are medical related or not. With a scanning service, records can be quickly turned digital, and with optical character recognition, scanners can recognize the text, even handwriting, to increase the level of security. For companies with high volumes of records of all kinds should ensure that record keeping methods are at their strongest.

Tab Service Company is a Chicago based company with over 53 years of experience as a data processing service provider.  We provide business with outsourcing solutions for document scanning services, data entry services and mailing/lettershop services.  As a SOC2-approved service organization, we apply industry-best practices to our approach with clients.