ESSENTIAL TOOLS FOR PLANNING A HEALTH RECORDS DEPARTMENT

The Health Records Department is a centrally managed service providing a health records service to a variety of health professionals, both within the hospital and outside the hospital. The range of services and workload is led by patient activity levels, the needs of the clinician and statutory requirements.  The aim is to provide complete, accurate and timely patient related information service to all of our staff to make sure that our patients get the best possible care. It was discovered that patient complaint about time spent in health records department as a result of folders being filed in different location which delayed the retrieval of patent case note has posed a threat to healthcare system. The aim of the study is to establish the essential tools needed for planning a health records department; its’ impact on workers’ performance and also to find out those involved in planning a health records department. Based on this four research questions was raised while one hypothesis was postulated.