"Under normal circumstances, if a patient goes to an emergency department, for example, a physician or surgeon can request that the patient's records be retrieved and made available within 24 hours. But if the records happen to be in transit to another province, or awaiting scanning, a delay could have ramifications for the patient's treatment and outcome, the employee said."
"You don't want to think of it, but you know, given the scenario, it could be death. That's patient care. It's not just paper. It's the patient's record. It's negligence, if I'm being honest. The employee said contracting the work out is unnecessary. We have people in the province willing and able to work. So if there was a scheduling issue or hiring issue, management should have done that from the get-go."
Nine hundred boxes of paper health records from Nova Scotia's central zone are being trucked to Iron Mountain in Toronto for scanning and electronic conversion by a private company. A backlog of approximately 22,000 inches (nearly 56,000 centimetres) of records is being digitized ahead of the One Person One Record (OPOR) electronic system launch in the central zone in early May. Sending files out of province could delay retrievals; normally clinical records can be retrieved and made available within 24 hours, but records in transit or awaiting scanning may not be accessible, potentially affecting treatment and outcomes. Contracting out was criticized as unnecessary given available local staff.
Read at www.cbc.ca
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]