Papershrink Med Consultancy Ltd

Every hospital department has to keep paper records with some form of security for many years and these can be differing lengths of time depending upon the information within the document. This is why electronic capture and management of documents is becoming the de facto method of storage and documents will meet the required BSI standards so images can be admissible in a court of law.

PaperShrink Med can provide consultancy to assist with optimum times to keep records and where possible convert them into an electronic format and destroy the paper. The images can be stored indefinitely, with no reduction in quality and with a full audit trail — and as new technology develops, these images can be imported into other applications.

Given the increasing amount of law suits that continue to prevail, having records readily accessible in a very short time and with a full audit trail to meet the demands of the defence council, the reduction in time and money can save enormous sums of funding.

The retention period for medical records continues to be an area where there is no complete understanding of how long certain records should be kept.

As records build up so the amount of paper used increases and the area of space required for storage becomes ever more in demand. This is why electronic storage of paper documentation is increasing. The most common reasons for this are:

• Storage difficulties
• Retrieval and consequential loss
• Flood damage
• Fire damage
• Paper degradation

The Papershrink Med Consultancy will review your current paper records environment, taking into consideration both patient and operational areas such as infrastructure and environment. There will be an initial meeting to explain our processes, review the requirement and agree to deliver a report that meets these requirements.

The report includes the following:
1. Current Status.
2. Disaster Recovery
3. Offsite Storage Logistics
4. Disadvantages of retaining the physical paperwork
5. Security issues
6. Sharing of information


Other areas that Papershrink Med consider are:

We focus on implementing the best indexing structure to meet all retrieval requirements that also take into consideration controlled and limited access for some personnel to comply with Data Protection Act.

The report will cover limiting the number of images captured in colour. The file size of a 200dpi colour image is typically more than 10 times the size of the same image captured in black & white. Therefore colour images would need many more CDs/DVDs and result in a greater impact regarding the images across a network or the speed when scrolling through multiple pages on a web site. We would provide recommendations for the most efficient methodology for capturing a mix of colour and black & white images.

Our report would conclude by recommending the most appropriate methodology for the shredding of the documents, depending upon the type of records and the information contained within. It is also essential that legal admissibility of the images is covered in the business case.

Download the fact sheet here >>>