Assessment of medical records management systems
Abstract
Medical Records Management is the art and science of managing all information
relating to the operation of a Healthcare Practice. The purpose of this study was to
assess the medical records management systems at Mildmay Uganda, the specific
objectives were; to identify the procedures used in processing medical records at
Mildmay, to establish the types of classification and filing systems used at Mildmay and
to establish the retrieval and storage mechanism used at Mildmay. The study applied
both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection. Data was collected from 60
respondents who included records clerks, secretaries, office messengers, records
managers and registry users. The found out that Individual health care record,
responsibility and accountability, retention and durability, ownership, Storage and
security and disposal are the major procedures used in processing of medical records at
Mildmay, then Request-oriented classification, Content-based classification and
Automatic document classification are the classification methods used at Mildmay and
the filling systems were alphabetical, numerical, Alpha-Numeric and chronological
filing systems. Finally for storage and retrieval, computer files, paper records, flash
disks, magnetic tape are the major storage mechanisms used at Mildmay and for
retrieval mechanisms, manual search to retrieve paper records, automatic search for
electronic records and use internet based search were identified. The study concluded
that ; Individual health care record is mostly used to process medical records at
Mildmay, Request-oriented classification is the most used method of medical records
classification and is alphabetical filing system is the most method used in filing records.
Ccomputer files and paper records are the most storage and retrieval mechanisms used
at the ministry. In a nutshell, records management and processing at Mildmay is highly
embraced though there some unmet goals. The study recommended training in handling
of medical records.