The healthcare industry faces ongoing challenges to keep up with technological advances while also protecting patient privacy. However, technology allows healthcare facilities and medical practices to remain more efficient while also improving the level of care provided. While it might seem like a daunting task to digitize paper records, once scanning is complete, access to important medical records and data is streamlined.
Moving forward your electronic medical records are in a consistent easy to read format. If you feel digitization is too difficult a job, here’s a look at how it works and how it helps improve efficiencies, accuracies, and patient care.
What is Medical Document Scanning?
Medical document scanning services offer a cost-effective, secure, and quick way to digitize paper files. This allows you to go paperless so you can quickly access patient records, share and access patient information with other facilities and also ensure accuracy and confidentiality for your patients. Digitization is made easier with medical record scanning which allows your patient records to be scanned, saved, and stored using state-of-the-art scanning equipment and software.
What are the Benefits of Medical Document Scanning?
There are many benefits to medical document scanning and digital records management including:
- Easier access and retrieval of patient files
- Simple searches to help find the documents you need
- Availability of medical records for other healthcare providers to improve patient care
- Limitless storage space via a secure data storage system
- Reduction of physical space required at your site, opening up more space for patient care
- Secure storage requiring passwords for access, reducing risk for patient confidentiality breaches
- Seamless access to patient records with other medical facilities
- Improved workflow and patient service
- Disaster recovery
Although medical document scanning requires planning upfront, once the work begins it is completed quickly. You no longer need to contend with a combination of paper records, images and digital files. Everything is streamlined and accessed from one convenient, secure storage system.
Why You Need to Implement Medical Document Scanning
Record keeping and access is key to keeping information safe and providing effective patient treatment. By eliminating the paper element from your records, you reduce the risk for loss, ensure all patient records are stored in a single digital patient file for secure, easy access, and integrate all records into one format. There really is no other way to ensure patient records are safe and that you can keep up with the technology used by other doctors, health care providers and medical facilities.
Meet with the Medical Scanning Service
Your first meeting with your scanning bureau allows the scanning service to understand your needs and come up with a plan to help meet your goals. They will recommend the best process and storage for your facility. A plan is developed, and the service representatives will explain how to prepare documents for transportation.
It is very important to work with a scanning service specializing in medical records as they know how to handle patient information. Understanding medical terms helps to ensure they manage each image or record properly so your data management is suited to your medical facility’s needs.
Organization of Records and Documents
This is the most labor-intensive step of the process. Records and documents must be organized to ensure each patient file includes all the information for their health history including x-rays and any digital records you have stored. This allows your scanning service to access any current digital documents you have so they can set up files that the paper records can then be stored with. As well, you can start with active patients first and slowly complete the scanning process ending with deceased and inactive patients.
Transporting Documents for Scanning
Once the documents are sorted and organized, the scanning service takes over. The documents are sent to a secure facility where the scanning team receives them and prepares them for scanning. Confidentiality is a top priority and documents are handled with extreme care to ensure nothing gets lost or misfiled.
Medical Document Scanning Begins
Your documents are scanned at a rate of 120 pages per minute using the latest scanning hardware. To ensure records are legible and clear, a specialist uses clean-up software to improve the quality of the images. Medical scanning services adhere to strict standards to remain compliant with the healthcare industry to ensure records and images are accurate and all documents are complete.
Exporting the Scanned Files
The scanned files are “exported” into the same format as your existing digital documents to keep everything compatible. You now have a paperless filing system allowing you to access everything from one storage system with an easy search tool to retrieve, review and share files.
Steps to Ensure Patient Privacy
This is the final and most important step of medical document scanning. Your scanning and data storage service provider ensures that the setup and storage of your patient records and documents are protected against unauthorized access and that breaches are avoided. The system is also secure ensuring there is no risk for data loss. Patient data privacy is protected using the latest cybersecurity tools. You can also apply role-based security to your electronic images, so only those with authorization can access certain elements or share and edit patient-critical information. All access is verified through built-in audit trail tools to ensure privacy.
Easy Patient Record Updates
Once your digitization is complete, you will optimize your patient care and streamline processes to improve efficiencies. You no longer contend with a mix of formats struggling to store and find the paper and digital records for each patient. The weak link is removed so all documents are in the same easy-to-access format improving document workflow using automated document processes. Your new electronic document management system ensures all records are accessed in the same manner and that all new documents remain current, without clashing with older versions. Everything remains accessible for both historical scanned documents and current digital files.
With medical document scanning, your medical practice or facility becomes more productive, and records are more secure. As a result, patient care is improved due to consistent, safe record keeping and easy, secure sharing capabilities.
For more information about medical document scanning services, contact our team today.