March 30, 2007
Migrating north: New
home for medical records
A day in the life of an MGH medical record may involve passing through
many hands and locations throughout the hospital — receptionists,
clinicians, coders and researchers — and even includes some off-campus
travel with members of MGH Transport. Medical records housed on the MGH
campus with Health Information Services (HIS) recently were moved from
the Clinics Basement to the eighth floor of the Founders Building, in
an 8,000-square-foot refurbished space to accommodate medical staff, patients,
researchers and other staff who use the department's services. The department
will continue to provide access and services to paper medical records
including: the Physicians Incomplete Area, Walk-In Release of Information
for MGH patients, the Privacy Office, Discharge Analysis and Processing,
Coding, Transcription Services, the Record Control Center and the Research
Reading Room.
HIS has maintained MGH medical records in the Clinics Basement
since 1929. In thelate 1970s, as patient volume grew, there was a need
to move older active files off campus. Today, approximately two million
active MGH medical records are maintained at the second HIS location,
located at 121 Innerbelt Rd. in Somerville. Records older than five years
are stored at another off-site location in Peabody.
"We began planning for the move to Founders 8 about two years ago,"
says Deborah Adair, director of HIS. "HIS Manager Claudia Sayer assumed
responsibility for managing this project and has done an amazing job.
Each day, approximately 700 records move back and forth between the main
campus and Somerville, and close to 3,000 records will be managed in and
out of the Founders Building. Ensuring that all services remain streamlined
and accessible is a priority for our patients and clinicians and is crucial
to the bottom line. Any holdup in the coding of medical records could
result in delayed discharge billing."
While the MGH is currently migrating to the electronic health record format,
approximately 35 to 40 percent of records, mostly inpatient, remain in
paper format. HIS will continue to gradually shift toward the management
and support of electronic health data and health records.
Archival photo of MGH medical records
