Medical Document Management: Security And SafetyWhen it comes to medical document management, I know that it is important to me that not everyone in the world can find out what my medical history is or how certain tests turned out. Medical document management can be a long process but with more hospitals and doctors' offices going strictly to software and computers it has made things a little easier. At some hospitals very little is kept in the form of hard copies. One hospital I was at recently, I discovered that as you signed all your papers informing you of this and that you could ask for them to print you a hard copy or have it sent directly to your inbox. Yes email your paperwork! That was so amazing, I signed all the papers on a touch screen with one of those stylus pens. Gone is the time of developing x-rays or waiting hours on MRI results now doctors can view each one minutes after it is done. Even if the person who reads MRI's is not in the building or is at home, he can view the test and write out the report on it and email it to the doctor in charge. Everything has really sped up, no more waiting for hours for the paper to travel from one floor to another to another, you can get the results as soon as they are available, which in many cases are almost immediately. Instead of room after room after room filled with documents, x-rays, MRIs and medical history everything can be stored in a computers system and the hospitals server. If there was an natural disaster, the worry of the loss of paper would not be a problem because all the paper could be integrated right into the system and be backed up and saved in a safer location. While not all doctors and hospitals have taken full advantage of this, it has become almost a necessity in some. The days of paper work is over and the paperless hospital is a near future reality. The last thing to figure out is what to do about the little paper prescriptions. |