Katrina highlights need for electronic medical records
Patient Safety Monitor Alert, September 28, 2005
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Tens of thousands of New Orleanians no longer have medical records, as Hurricane Katrina ravaged hospitals and destroyed paper files. The disaster highlights the medical industry's need to move toward electronic recordkeeping, according to an article in The Boston Globe.
Patients from the flooded city require care from hospitals in the surrounding area, but without proper medical records it's difficult for physicians and nurses to provide that treatment. Since the storm, patients and physicians have tried to piece together histories through memory and by tracking down hospital staff.
The area's VA hospital did have electronic recordkeeping and those files are intact. The move saved the records of 50,000 patients, making treatment for them much easier.
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