RAJ KUMAR
Ranchi, Oct.4: Orchid Medical Centre will destroy and dispose of in-patient medical records generated from May 2011 to December 2014 after a month.
A notice to this effect published in a vernacular suggests so. The records, which will be destroyed and disposed of, bear registration number 1000001 to 1009898.
Hospital general manager Santosh Singh confirmed the exercise saying that ‘only hard copies will be destroyed and the step is being taken after digitization of documents.’ Apart from this, he said ‘record related to medico-legal and death cases will be preserved.’
However, a section of people in the city smell rats in the exercise.
“Union government has planned to digitize the health record of all Indians by 2022 under the Digital Health Mission. Under the mission personal health records of users — their medical history, medication and allergies, immunization status, laboratory test results, radiology images, vital signs, personal statistics such as age and weight, demographics and billing information has to be kept. In this situation, taking the decision of destroying records raises doubt over the intention of the hospital,” one of the city residents said.
High Court lawyer Arvind Kumar Lall supported the suspicion saying hospital authorities should wait for a year.
“The Notice published in newspapers does not mention anywhere that the data has been digitalized and records related to medico-legal and death cases have been preserved. Data preservation till the accomplishment of Digital Health Mission is important for medical research, data-driven policymaking through real-time analytics and to reduce the cost of healthcare through improved fraud detection,” advocate Lall said.
On which GM Singh said this is for the first time the hospital is doing the exercise due to paucity of space.
“Steps are being taken in accordance with National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers (NABH) guidelines,” Singh said.
Contacted an official of Bhagwan Mahavir Medica Super Specialty Hospital for his comment, he said his hospital does not destroy any in-patient medical record. “We have outsourced a Bangalore-based company, Crown, for management of medical records,” the official said.
