[Histonet] Advice from Canadian Labs

[Greg Dobbin]

Hello Canadian Colleagues,
I am wondering what other clinical institutions in Canada are doing
with regard to retention of hardcopy consult reports. Here in prince
Edward Island we now have an electronic patient health record
province-wide so we no longer have hardcopy surgical reports filed in
the lab. Consult reports received from reference laboratories are being
scanned into the patient's report and checked and verified for
ledgibility. Any section that does not scan clear enough to read easily
is edited to match the hardcopy. 

So in our lab, the patient report and any associated consult reports
will be stored indefinately electronically. The CAP guidelines (which we
refer to but are not held to) suggest "Surgical Consultation" reports
should be kept indefinitely. I think therefore, we are meeting the
expectation here, but how long should I retain the hardcopy of these
consultation reports, 2 years? 20 years?? What are others doing in this
regard?
Thanks.
Greg    

Greg Dobbin, R.T.
Chief Technologist, Anatomic Pathology
Dept. of Laboratory Medicine,
Queen Elizabeth Hospital,
P.O. Box 6600
Charlottetown, PE    C1A 8T5
Phone: (902) 894-2337
Fax: (902) 894-2385

"I find that the harder I work, the 
more luck I seem to have."
- Thomas Jefferson


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