Appraising the standards of a typical health records department

Abstract

Health Records Department is the sole department responsible for the creation and management ofpatients’ health records. The department's prime objective is the provision of patient health records in atimely manner to different hospital units in order to assist physicians, allied health professionals andother hospital staff in the provision of quality care to patients.The department is not only the first port ofcall and last port of call but it is equally the image builder of the hospital. Its services cut across allspecialties and this explains why the department is a pivot around which other departments revolve inany hospital. The importance of standards in ensuring uniformity and as measures established to serve ascriteria or level of reference for determining the accomplishment of objectives was underscored. Thispaper examined the standards of a typical health records department and sections it should be organizedinto and the three different opinions of sections within the department reviewed were presented. It wasconcluded that for the department to carry out all its enumerated functions, it has to be a standard department, which is organized to establish structures that target the achievement of the set goals andobjectives. If standard is to ensure quality of service, uniformity and better outcome then, the technology that will drive the change and improve the standards and service should be embraced. The paper therefore, recommended that the standards of a typical health records department should be based on thetypes of services available and the size of the hospital and that consideration should be given majorly tothe deployment of Electronic Medical Records (EMR) as a way of improving the standards of thedepartment.Keywords: Health records; Health records department; Healthcare system; HIM professionals; Standards