Survey of the medical records filing in the teaching hospitals of Lorestan univercity of medical sciences in 2009

Results of thoughts, activities and measures taken in each organization are maintained as documents and records these records, which are created by spending great time and cost, contain valuable information and experiences that have an important role in promoting the goal or goals of the organization. therefore, medical records filing can be called memory of the organizations which weakness in it’s performance will lead to damage in all hospital activities. The present research was done to survey the medical records filing in Khorramabad teaching hospitals affiliated to Lorestan university of medical sciences in 2009. This research is a cross-sectional descriptive-analytic study. Data was collected using check-lists and questionnaires based on medical filing unit standards, and by observation and interview. Completed check-lists were analyzed using analysis limit and grading method by SPSS software. Questionnaire was utilized for qualitative evaluation of medical filing unit to analyze and clarify the medical filing situation with all the details in each hospital. The desirability degree of physical location and space, staff, medical records storage and retrieval system, equipment, procedures and guidelines and mechanized system of medical filing unit in the foresaid hospitals with 41% overall score percentage was “average”, and the highest percentage of compliance with the standard system belonged to mechanized system (48/8%), while the lowest one (26%) was related to physical location and space. The condition of the medical filing unit in all the studied hospitals were not ideal altogether. Therefore, the use of storage and retrieval modern technologies of medical record, such as establishing electronic medical filing, scanning and digital storing of medical records with fast retrieval capability cause result in Improvement in efficiency and performance of this important unit, optimum use of resources, cost saving and enhancement of patient care.