The Content of the Medical Record The Care and Keeping of Medical Records Disclosure of Medical Records Medical Records and Partnerships Electronic media - RHPA Regulations Records are created to serve as a reservoir of history of a person's health and interactions with medical care givers. They are essential as a chronicle of the history of medical care and as a direction for future medical care.
Medical records are instruments of considerable power.
Patients attribute value to them because they contain intimate information about their medical history. Both doctors and patients invest the medical record with substantial significance and both parties often have strong emotional attachments to them. The records also are an important measure of the quality of care because they endure after the interaction is over. This concept of stewardship of the medical content of the record is a relatively new one and we will examine the consequences of this decision on the transferring of records for the benefit of patients later in this article. In today's modern office, the increasing use of computers to store patient data has complicated our responsibilities even further.