2020 Volume 85 Issue 778 Pages 2583-2590
This study aims to understand whether medical record/X-ray film storage will be eliminated or not if electronic health record system (EHR) is introduced in hospitals or clinics. Questionnaires were distributed to 684 facilities which were newlybuilt/extended/rebuilt from 2003 to 2012 in order to see the effect of additional medical reimbursement for PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication System) established in 2008.187 replies and additional on-site interviews to 6 facilities brought us the following results;
1) Over 60% of built/extended/rebuilt hospitals/clinics has introduced EHR since 2008 while small hospitals with 20-199 beds are slow to introduce; 2) Even though EHR is introduced, it looks a bit hard to eliminate medical record storage because some hospitals have decided to keep all paper medical records for future medical lawsuit, it is difficult to scan all existing paper medical records and some original signed/stamped paper documents must be kept according to the law; 3) X-ray film storage is being eliminated as films are easily scanned rather than paper medical records, however, the thereby-obtained vacant room tends to be used as another storage again because many of them have no windows or air conditioner; 4) Many large EHR hospitals have their medical record storage in their own site while others have off-site. 5) Place of medical record/X-ray film storage is near administration office or inconvenient place to access. 6) Size of each storage is seemingly proportional to the number of beds among of EHR facilities; 7) One of the biggest concerns was that nearly 90% of hospitals/clinics put backup server on the same floor of the main server room. As we suffer from flood these days, backup system must be deeply considered again.
