ABC Hospital

1365 Voll Road

Cincinnati, Ohio 45230

Retention Policy
1

Purpose

Scope

Policy Guidelines

Definitions

The purpose of this policy is to ensure that ABC Hospital

complies with local, state, and federal regulations when it
comes to maintaining our health records and other healthrelated documents before we can destroy them. AHIMA
recommends that we keep our records for a minimum of
10 years. We will follow this policy up until we transition
to our EHR system on June 14,2016. After we implement
the new system, we will update our policy, accordingly.
This policy applies to all personnel that work with health
records, particularly those in the HIM department.
Health Information
Retention Period
Diagnostic images
5 Years
Disease Index
10 Years
Fetal Heart Monitor records 10 years after the infant
reaches the age of majority
Master Patient Index
Permanently
Operative Index
10 Years
Adult patient records
10 Years
Minor patient records
Age of majority plus statue
of limitations
Physician index
10 years
Register of births
Permanently
Register of deaths
Permanently
Register of surgical
Permanently
procedures
Corporate records
Permanently
Employee records
Permanently
Accounting and finance
7 years
records
For the purpose of this policy, the following definition shall
apply:
Statue of limitations- A law that dictates the maximum
period of time that may elapse between an event and any
legal action related to that event.

ABC Hospital
1365 Voll Road
Cincinnati, Ohio 45230

Destruction Policy
1

Purpose

Scope

Policy Guidelines

The purpose of this policy is to ensure that ABC hospital

complies with federal and state regulations and AHIMA
standards, in regards to destruction of our records. We
must continue to protect the confidentiality of our records.
We will begin to destruct our paper records once the new
EHR system has been implemented.
This policy applies to all personnel that work with health
records, particularly those in the HIM department.
We will begin to transfer our paper records by
scanning and uploading to our new system. Once
paper records are securely stored we will begin to
destruct the paper documents.
The paper records can be destructed by burning,
shredding, pulping, or pulverizing.
Appropriate documentation of the health record
destruction must be maintained no matter how we
destruct the paper record.
This documentation will be kept in a certificate of
destruction.
The certificate of destruction will include:
Date of destruction
Method of destruction
Description of the disposed records series of
numbers and items
Inclusive dates recovered
A statement that the records were destroyed on a
normal course of business
The signature of the individuals supervising and
witnessing the destruction.

ABC Hospital
1365 Voll Road
Cincinnati, Ohio 45230

References

Approval
Approval date
Policy Owner

Retention and Destruction of Health Information (2011

update). (2016). Retrieved May 28, 2016, from
http://library.ahima.org/doc?oid=105704#.V0ms-pErKM8
Fahrenholz , C . G., & Russo, R. (201 3). Documentation
ion for health records. AHIMA.
CEO of ABC Hospital
The policy was approved on05/26/2016
This version takes effect June 1, 2016
This policy will be reviewed on June 14, 2016
Ulela Mae Hill
Administrator of HIM Department of ABC Hospital
Maeh2006@yahoo.com