Article written by Stephanie Onofri
Here’s a little tid-bit you may or may not have known: all Medical schools have an office for the maintenance of standard medical regulatory compliance. Yup! The role of these offices is to provide the guidelines and ensure the adherence to a compliance system that is fitting to the Institution in question.
They conduct audits and mitigate risk for Research, Hospital, Faculty Practice, Budget, Biosafety, and Animal Care compliance.
When I started researching how Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and Business Process Automation could help Medical School Student records, I did not anticipate stumbling into “compliance” yet again. I expected to find something about how difficult student and patient records management is, or how disorganized their paper filing system is. You know. The obvious stuff!
And yet, the compliance factor continues to stump Industries including the institution where young professionals enroll to make a difference in the lives of others.
Medical school is no novice to the benefits of electronic document management. In fact, most universities have already substituted paper charts, notes, and books with iPads and other manner of electronic material. This guarantees a higher level of efficiency, ensuring that documents are stored away automatically and granting faster access when there is a need for them, improving patient satisfaction and (let’s face it) student organizational skills.
So why is this such a great find, you may ask? Well, for starters, electronic storage and ease of access doesn’t necessarily guarantee accuracy of data, security of records, or compliance to institution regulation. In order for that to occur, documents stored by students and other medical school offices (such as Research and Development, Admissions, Registrar, and Financial Aid) would need to be streamlined to an Enterprise Content Management system that can:
- Automate data audits across all types of documentation (PDFs, e-mails, spreadsheets, etc.)
- Secure various levels of access to documents based on the role/position of the person retrieving them
- Integrate with the Student Information System (SIS) being used by the Institution
Compliance is crucial to the development of Medical Programs. It grants the security blanket required for “business to continue as usual” and to improve on existing document processes. So imagine how convenient it would be for compliance offices to exercise this heightened level of security and automation over medical and student records! ECM and BPA are the quintessential investments that yield long-term ROI benefits for Compliance Offices across the board, but in medical school compliance offices, staff and Institutions enjoy the additional perk of knowing their newly acquired electronic management system is helping mold better and more responsible future physicians.
How can ECM be tailored to fit your Institution’s standards? Contact DataBank today to find out! Or for more information on ECM, download our free Ultimate Guide to ECM below!
