• Hendrick Hospital keeps paper records for ten years. They have gotten behind on the destruction of medical records. Their HIM director has sent down a memo that it was time to start purging some records for destruction. HIM professional staff begins pulling out 11-year-old files and stacking them up in boxes. What concern do you have with HIM staff pulling records based strictly on that eleven-year indicator?
• Joan Rivers is the HIM director for Ballinger Memorial hospital. Records are purged for destruction quarterly. The HIM staff has been working for several days pulling records and they are now boxed and ready to go. They use an outside destruction company. The destruction company workers just arrived to collect the records and load them into the truck. Just as they prepare to leave the HIM director heads out the door to stop them. Why do you think she stopped them from leaving with the medical records?
• Verify the importance of timeliness and completeness for legally defensible health records for the HIM professional.
• Identify the various characteristics found within an EHR.