Numerous regulations determine how medical facilities must store medical records. Although they vary from state to state, the primary goal is the same – to protect patient data and ensure that it’s secure.
Luckily, there are steps you can take starting today to improve your medical record security and ensure that no vital information gets destroyed or damaged.
Read on below and find a few useful tips that, even though they don’t guarantee compliance with guidelines, can still help you get on the right track.
Have a Secure Storage Room
If you have a ton of physical documents that contain medical records, you need to take extra care that they do not get lost, damaged or destroyed because there will be no way of recovering them.
And that can only be achieved if you have a secure storage facility for all of your documents. The storage should be set up in a safe location that can be monitored so that you can keep precise records of who accesses the documents and at what time.
Any time a document is taken out of storage, that needs to be logged and tracked so that nothing gets lost.
Of course, the records need to be protected against environmental factors as well – make sure that they are kept in a cool, dry place that’s protected from water, heat or high humidity levels.
Train Your Staff
It won’t matter how secure your storage location is if you don’t train your staff the proper procedures to ensure that the documents don’t get lost or damaged.
The first step is obvious – you should establish clear guidelines on handling documents such as ensuring they don’t get damaged, and also about transporting them in a manner that ensures they don’t get lost.
Finally, you should establish the practice of shredding documents that are no longer necessary – having piles of old records is just asking for sensitive information to get lost.
Keep Control of Who Has Access
Even if you have a secure facility, you should still have control over who has access to the files and keep a log of all records that have been used or transported.
If you want to have the most secure and efficient logging system, use a card entry system, but if you don’t have the budget or the resources, at least make sure there’s supervision of the process and someone responsible for the safety of the documents.
Digitize Your Medical Records
Although the practices listed above can significantly improve the chances of keeping your records safe, they’re not a permanent solution.
Physical records simply face too many risks, and it’s inevitable that at least some of the documents will become damaged or go missing.
That’s why the only permanent solution that can ensure their safety is digitizing your records and going paperless. Today, it’s easier than ever to make medical records scanning a painless and quick experience that doesn’t disrupt the workflow of the practice.
There are probably at least a few medical records scanning services providers in your area that are experienced in handling sensitive medical records with care and attention while also completing the entire process promptly.
Together with digitizing your old records, you should also implement a system for medical record management that allows you to input medical records digitally in the first place.
With time, you can achieve a completely paperless medical records storage system that allows you to keep all of your data completely secure and backed up at multiple servers.
The important thing to remember when digitizing your medical records is that the process needs to be compliant with the numerous regulations such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA.
When choosing a vendor to scan your medical records, make sure that they have a SOC 2 report which ensures that the company meets the requirements for security, availability, confidentiality, and processing integrity that are essential for processing medical records without risk of losing sensitive data.