Print

Print
The National Pathology Accreditation Advisory Council (NPAAC) of Australia has recently revised its Retention Guidelines in this area. This comprehensive document is available at:
http://www.health.gov.au/npaac/docs/retention.htm
in final draft form.  The document has since been adopted with minor modifications (publication is imminent).

While most of the document considers laboratory specimens, the introductory section considers laboratory reports. Note that these are specified from the perspective of the laboratory. The printed report may well form part of the medical records of the health care institution or provider.

Leslie Burnett
Pacific Laboratory Medicine Services (PaLMS)
Sydney, AU

At 00:20 22/08/02 +0100, you wrote:
Date:    Wed, 21 Aug 2002 16:52:05 +0100
From:    "Graham, Billy" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Retention of printed lab reports by wards
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="----=_NextPartTM-000-c8371538-ebbb-461d-b9bd-b6470bca31d1"

Hi,

Does anyone have information on how long wards must legally keep hard-copy
laboratory reports, if at all, assuming they will always be available
electronically via the lab computer (both active and historical records).
This query came to me from the nursing staff. Currently the ward in question
receives lab reports and the nurses filter out any showing 'abnormal'
results. The medical staff then look up these patient records in the lab
computer and take appropriate action. Following this, all the hard-copy
reports are filed away alphabetically in boxes dating back 7 years - the
reports are NOT stored with the patient record. These hard-copy archives are
taking up a lot of room and much staff time in operation of the filing
system.

I think if the retention of the hard copies is not a legal requirement the
ward would like to file them in the drawer labelled 'bin' rather than waste
time and space filing them as they currently do.

Any advice would be much welcomed.

Best regards,   Billy Graham.
------ACB discussion List Information-------- This is an open discussion list for the academic and clinical community working in clinical biochemistry. Please note, archived messages are public and can be viewed via the internet. Views expressed are those of the individual and they are responsible for all message content.

ACB Web Site http://www.acb.org.uk List Archives http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/ACB-CLIN-CHEM-GEN.html List Instructions (How to leave etc.) http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/