Our mantra is see people not paper, because within a set of health records it's not just the medical history it's how we think and feel as well. The record has sensitive information not only in regards to our health concerns but may contain family history. All health records are confidential legal documents they get lost, thrown around and often treated with a lack of understanding.
When staff correctly track a set of health records what they are simply doing is completing a loop. And when the loop is complete we are able to locate the health record and deliver it were it needs to be.
Often patients are kept waiting for an outpatient appointment, Clinicians are unable to confidentially make a judgement , or worse an operation has been cancelled all because we are unable to find the health record.
We want a trust wide zero tolerance approach to the non-tracking of health records all staff are responsible therefore accountable it is not acceptable to ignore this vital function and we in health records will work tirelessly to get the message across.
So what have we done.....The track it events were held on each site and collectively we had over 1000 pledges and a great response.
On the back of this we are making this an annual event as well as starting drop in sessions for staff in various departments to support non health records staff.
We also have created a video highlighting the consequences of missing notes available on our web page and are getting this to run on screen savers across the trust for a couple of days to increase awareness.