Topic: Have a plan in place to prevent water damage to your medical records
HIM Connection, June 11, 2007
Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to HIM Connection!
Floods, water sprinkler damage (following a fire or smoke incident), and roof/plumbing leaks are common occurrences. Any of these can cause damage to paper records. Ensuring that you have a list of firms that specialize in restoring water-damaged records is imperative. Firms specializing in this area often use freeze-drying techniques. You can find firms of this type in your part of the country by performing a simple Internet search for "water damage," "paper," "restoration," and "freeze dry."
A simple precautionary fix is to place rolls of plastic drop cloths on top of the files that hold your paper records. These can be dropped quickly over the shelving if there is a plumbing or roof leak. Be careful not to exceed the space limitations between the top rolls and the sprinkler head.
Hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and terrorism are all reasons for preparing for the worst in advance. Having these disaster recovery plans in place will save you time if your organization encounters any of these unfortunate situations.
Editor's note: This article was adapted from HCPro's book More With Less: Best Practices for HIM Directors, Second Edition. For more information, click here.
Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to HIM Connection!
Related Products
Most Popular
- Articles
-
- Q/A: Volume requirement for reporting hydration services
- Featured blog post: Nurses face felony charges after reporting physician to the Texas Medical Board
- Catch up on what's new with injections and infusions
- Topic: CMS, OESS post new security compliance review information, checklist
- What does case-mix index mean to you?
- Capturing all necessary codes for IUD insertion and removal can be challenging
- QA:Coding multiple initial infusions
- News and briefs: Oklahoma Osteopathic Association against residency bill change
- HIPAA Q&A: Level of encryption needed for email
- OB services: Coding inside and outside of the package
- E-mailed
-
- Q/A: Volume requirement for reporting hydration services
- Featured blog post: Nurses face felony charges after reporting physician to the Texas Medical Board
- Catch up on what's new with injections and infusions
- New conflicts of interest create new challenges
- Q/A. One injection code or two?
- What does case-mix index mean to you?
- Q&A tackles coding questions about injections and infusions
- Joint Commission Center announces handoff communication solutions
- Inside best practice: Reduce patient falls with a stoplight
- Identify modifiable risk factors to prevent patient falls
- Searched