Question

Retention of Health Information

The topic of discussion this week is retention of health information. Pick a state, not necessarily the one you live in now, and use the Internet to research the retention requirements for the state you picked. Write a brief analysis of the retention requirements making sure to include health records, radiology films, death records, and other health record types and formats (i.e. electronic). How do you feel about the requirements? Too restrictive? Not restrictive enough?

Answer 1

1 The retentiom requirements for State of kerala is based on the following health records.

Medical records is used mainly to cover all clinical encounters and original inpatient and outpatient records generated at the time of admission or outpatient attendance,the retention period in this case is from the date of the last discharge from hospital or following the patient death.Electronic medical records includes all paper medical records in a computerized format.HCI are encouraged to to convert and store all paper medical records in an electronic format for a period of lifetime+6 years.In case of developing appropriate retention and archival strategies for the storage of medical records ,HCI may after a specific period of retention ,cull the medical records and retain atleast the records proposed below as part of the secondary medical records ,to be stored for the remainder of the retention period such as Inpatient/outpatient discharge summary,consent forms,operation reports,X-ray reports,Maternity records ,medical and other medico-legal forms etc.