Medical recordkeeping, essential but overlooked aspect of quality of care in resource-limited settings.
Medical recordkeeping is essential to assuring quality health care. Records aid in the medical management of patients while serving epidemiological purposes. Medical recordkeeping is often inadequate in resource-limited settings, which threatens the quality of health care. In this study, by way of example, we make the case for increased attention to medical recordkeeping by illustrating how poor charting and archiving can threaten the quality of care. We make suggestions to improve the adequacy of medical recordkeeping by emphasizing recent technological innovations applied to resource-limited settings and the need to instil a culture of recordkeeping.
The Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada. catherine.pirkle@umontreal.com
Catherine M
CM
Pirkle
Alexandre
A
Dumont
Maria-Victoria
MV
Zunzunegui
D003266:Continuity of Patient Care / Q000458:organization & administration; D003657:Decision Making; D057286:Electronic Health Records / Q000458:organization & administration; D006282:Health Personnel / Q000458:organization & administration; D006801:Humans; D008302:Mali; D011787:Quality of Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D011996:Records; D012675:Senegal; D014798:Vital Statistics