Healthcare IT is viewed by those who buy as being a "frill". A nice-to-have and excellent-to-impress object that would help project a "cool" image of the healthcare service provider, HCIT fails miserably to deliver on its most important promises of increasing efficiency and revenues as implementation issues and challenges in subsequent continuous use makes it a frustrating venture at best. If instead the focus is on earning through moderate to substantial savings then it can provide astounding ROI to the tune that cannot be matched by any medical device, equipment or service. The ROI can be 250 - 500+% in the first year of continuous operation after successful implementation.
Medical records being the only authentic, reliable and documented records of the events associated with a patient during the course of his illness and its outcome that may include death is the only written documented evidence that may be exculpatory in nature acceptable to the courts of law and other competent authorities.
These records frequently contain sensitive and vital information related to a person's physical and mental condition that could be extremely private and confidential in nature, which if shared without any application of mind could have disastrous effect on the physical, mental, social and economic well-being of the person.
The ownership of these records is a serious issue since although it contains information regarding a person that should be morally known only to the person himself, the contents and conclusions contained therein and made by qualified care providers may, if disclosed without due consideration of all facts can have devastating effects to the person and his legal assignees that may even result in fatality. Hence, extreme caution needs to be taken whenever dealing with these records by all stakeholders.
Acknowledgement: This article is derived largely from Sanju Singh, U.S. Sinha, N. K. Sharma, Preservation of Medical Records- An Essential Part of Health Care Delivery, INDIAN INTERNET JOURNAL OF FORENSIC MEDICINE & TOXICOLOGY, Vol.3. No.4. 2005; and the full article can be found at http://www.icfmt.org/vol3no4/preservation_%20of_medical_%20records.htm and Joseph Thomas (2009).“Medical records and issues in negligence”. Indian Journal of Urology, Vol. 25. No.3: 384-388; and the full article can be found at http://www.indianjurol.com/article.asp?issn=0970-1591;year=2009;volume=25;issue=3;spage=384;epage=388;aulast=Thomas
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