ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: Documentation of patient care in medical record formats is always emphasized. These documents are used as a means to go on treating the patients, staff in their own defense, assessment, care, any legal proceedings and medical science education. Therefore, in this study, each of the data elements available in patients' records are important and filling them indicates the importance put by the documenting teams, so it has been dealt with the documentation the patient records in the hospitals of Mazandaran province. METHOD: This cross-sectional study aimed to review medical records in 16 hospitals of Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences (MazUMS). In order to collection data, a check list was prepared based on the data elements including four forms of the admission, summary, patients' medical history and progress note. The data recording was defined as "Yes" with the value of 1, lack of recording was defined as "No" with the value of 2, and "Not applied" with the value of 0 for the cases in which the mentioned variable medical records are not applied. RESULTS: The overall evaluation of the documentation was considered as 95-100% equal to "good", 75-94% equal to "average" and below -75% equal to "poor". Using the stratified random sample volume formula, 381 cases were reviewed. The data were analyzed by the SPSS version 19 and descriptive statistics. RESULTS: The results showed that %62 of registration and all the four forms were in the "poor" category. There was no big difference in average registration among the hospitals. Among the educational groups Gynecology and Infectious were equal and had the highest average of documentation of %68. In the data categories, the highest documentation average belonged to the verification, %91. CONCLUSION: According to the overall assessment in which the rate of documentation was in the category "week", we should make much more efforts to reach better conditions. Even if a data element is recognized meaningless, unnecessary and repetitive by the in charge of documentation, it should not be neglected and skipped. In order to solve the problems of these types, it is suggested to discuss the medical records forms and elements that seem unnecessary in the related committees.
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: Documentation of patients' medical records has been always emphasized because medical records are as a means to be applied by patients, all medical staff, quality evaluations of health care, lawsuits, medical education and, etc. Regarding to this, each of the data elements available in the sheets of medical records has their own values. The rate of completion indicates the importance of the medical recorders for faculty member. So in this article the researcher evaluates the completion of medical records in the teaching hospitals of Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences. METHODS AND MATERIALS: This cross- sectional study has been conducted to review the patients' medical cases in five teaching university hospitals. To collect data, a check list was mode based on data element arrangement in four main sheets of admission and discharge, summery, patients' history and clinical examination and progress note sheets. Recorded data were defined as "Yes" with the value 1, not recorded data were defined as "No" with the value 2, and not used data were defined for cases in which the mentioned variable had no use with the value Zero. The overall evaluation of the rate of documentation was considered as %95 -100 equal to "good", 75-94% equal to average and under 75% was considered as "poor". Using the sample volume formula, 281 cases were randomly stratified reviewed. The data were analyzed by the software SPSS version 19 and descriptive statistical scales. RESULTS: The results have shown that the overall documentation rate in all the four sheets was 62% and in a poor level. There was no big difference in the average documentation among the hospital. Among the educational group, the gynecology and infection groups are equal to each other and had the highest record average (68%). Within the all groups, the highest rate has belonged to the documentation of signatures (91%). CONCLUSION: Regarding to the overall assessment that documentation rate was in a poor level, more attempt should be made to achieve a better condition. Even if a data element of the sheets seems meaningless, unnecessary and duplicated, it should not be ignored and skipped. In order to solve such problems, it is suggested that medical records sheets and the elements that seem unnecessary, should be reviewed in relevant committees.