Oregon prison records go digital

Laura Pedulli | | Health Exec | EMR/EHR

 

The medical records of Oregon’s 14,600 prison inmates are going digital.

The state’s governor, John Kitzhaber, proposed a budget earmarking $3 million for an EMR system to replace the inmates’ paper records in addition to more than 40,000 files the state maintains on former inmates, reports Statesman Journal.

The move aims to solve the logistical nightmare of faxing lengthy records to physicians upon request and locating specific files that may be temporarily missing, according to Steve Robbins, head of health services at the Department of Corrections. Digitizing the records will allow the state to focus on care as opposed to tracking down specific information, he told the paper.

Read the article.

Laura Pedulli

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