Shelves with incomplete paper files for 1,500 discharged patients are stacked up against a wall in one room, waiting for physicians or others to write up an official report or sign a document. Some are almost a year old. As well, hundreds of files cover another wall, waiting to be scanned into the computer. Once a paper chart is transferred into a computer file, the demand for it increases exponentially. With a computerized record, physicians can more easily spot trends that help in diagnoses and in planning treatment.
Researchers can retrieve vast new fields of information.
The benefits for patient care stretch beyond even that. Better record-keeping also yields bigger government grants for St. Paul's. The Medical Records department feeds some of the information from each chart into a national repository, called the Canadian Institute for Health Information, which prepares statistical reports used by governments as a basis for health-care financing and planning. This puts more pressure on the Medical Records department because the quality of the chart-work and coding in this office has a direct impact on St. Paul's financial health. Unfinished charts and incomplete reporting means less government support.