Obtaining Outside Records Team

Problem

The current process for obtaining outside medical records is inefficient, haphazard, unreliable, and dangerous for patients. The downstream effects of this are felt by residents, who spend unnecessary time obtaining records and sifting through incomplete or disorganized records, but more importantly by patients, who suffer from delays in diagnosis and treatment, or, worse still, unnecessary tests and procedures.

  1. Lack of Standardized Process – Currently IM and ER are only inpatient departments with known/standardized process for obtaining records. Surveys indicate that residents, by and large, are doing the bulk of this work (survey shows 55% of the time).
  2. Records often arrive incomplete. Patients who arrive through the transfer center arrive with incomplete records 25-65% of the time.
  3. Records arrive in disorganized fashion – residents spend on average 44 minutes looking through disorganized notes to locate important information.

 

Project Goals

Our goal is to standardize the process of obtaining outside medical records throughout all departments in the hospital, to decrease the amount of time spent by residents to obtain them by at least 75%, to ensure that records are received within 24 hours of a request, and for all records to be organized by support staff.

Results

Coming soon!

Anu Phadke, MD

Faculty Mentor & Team Coach
Internal Medicine Department

Michael Turken, MD

Core Member
Internal Medicine Resident

Outside records are critical to patient care, yet no efficient system for obtaining outside records currently exists.

Shushmita Ahmed, MD

Senior Member
General Surgery Resident

Tom Cullen, MD

Core Member
Pediatric Radiology Fellow

Lesley Flynt, MD

Core Member
Nuclear Medicine Resident

Thomas Lew, MD

Core Member
Internal Medicine Resident

Rebecca Miller-Kuhlmann, MD

Core Member
Neurology Resident

Brian Pridgen, MD

Core Member
Plastic Surgery Resident

Zoe Quandt, MD

Core Member
Internal Medicine Resident

Nichole Young-Lin, MD

Core Member
Obstetrics & Gynecology Resident