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Articles

CJBSS: Vol. 10 No. 2, Dec. 2019

Managing Health Records in the Context of Service Delivery: Issues and Challenges

  • Kamorudeen Adegboyega & Hadiza Sa’eed Musa
DOI
https://doi.org/10.20370/cjbss.v10i2.1798
Submitted
December 16, 2019
Published
2019-12-16

Abstract

Records are considered as the memory of health organizations. Therefore, their management constitutes important component towards efficient delivery of service to clients. It is through records management that accurate data are made available for patients’ care and administrative purposes. In spite of the roles of records in health organizations, the way they are managed in various health facilities is of serious concern. Accordingly, poor records management leads to the failure of health facilities to deliver efficient services. Health records in this article include detailed documented patient’s information, which cover health problem, diagnosis and treatment over a period. This article therefore examines the issues and challenges associated with records management in the delivery of services to clients in health setting. In terms of methodology, the article employs secondary source of data/information where scholarly publications were reviewed to illustrate the subject matter. The article reveals that health records, if properly managed could perform important functions. These include provision of detail information about the patients’ health conditions; serve as platform for detecting and neutralizing the incidence of medical errors and useful for health facilities in response to complaints from the clients about health services, among others. The article also discussed the challenges associated with records management in health sector. They include poor record keeping, inadequate/poor storage facility and ineffective medical records management policy. The article concludes that priority should be given to efficient records management to enhance appropriate service delivery in healthcare organizations.