Hospitals have room for growth within records management

July 29, 2013

Many work environments rely on their filing cabinets and folders of information, but the health care industry needs to revamp its medical record management systems. Drawers full patient health information takes up a lot of room at hospitals and doctor offices.

However, changes are happening in the health care sector. As of earlier this month, more than half of providers and 80 percent of hospitals have some type of electronic health records (EHR) software, according to USA Today. The transition began in 2011 and there is still a lot of places where medical professionals and EHR vendors can improve.

Last month’s study showed that the national average for EHR use is at 39 percent, according to Bloomberg. Despite states like Wisconsin and Minnesota where 70 and 66 percent of physicians and hospitals utilize their EHR software, there needs to be another way to improve records management within their office.

A reason that discourages doctors to use EHRs is that some vendors have interoperability issues. EHRs are intended to make file sharing and workflow easier, but in some cases it is actually harder. Medical staff can still streamline their workflow with a secondary database. Having a cloud-based data processing service for these types of situations can be helpful for everyone involved. Staff members can manage their data entries through the cloud’s secure server for patients that need copies of health records.

School will be back in session in the coming weeks and parents are going to need access to their child’s health history. An influx of upcoming visits may cause the medical record management systems to crash. If a physician performed a recent, thorough scanning service in advance, then personnel have something to work from. For some individuals, they have less time to wait for records because they are attending college in another state.

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 medical record managementdocument scanning services, data entry services and mailing/lettershop services.  As a SOC2-approved organization, we apply industry-best practices to our approach with clients.