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Healthcare facilities, regardless of their size, are responsible for keeping patient information private in the real and digital world to remain in compliance with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The act states that an individual’s health information should be protected with physical, technical and administrative safeguards to ensure its integrity, confidentiality and availability, as well as to thwart unauthorized or inappropriate disclosure, use or access. When it comes to the electronic processing of patient health information, healthcare facilities and document scanning companies must have specific safeguards in place to protect the privacy of the patients served. When selecting a contractor for your everyday or emergency scanning needs, it’s important to review its practices or procedures to ensure compliance and avoid hefty fines.

Remember the scene at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark when the priceless artifact Indiana Jones has been fighting to preserve is wheeled into storage in a yawning warehouse? Schools and universities often have similar storage areas for their “treasures” – i.e., their academic records. Raiders of the Lost Ark ends with the implication that the ark will probably never see the light of day again, but the opposite is true for school records. Schools must be able to provide students’ records on request at any time, even decades after a diploma has been granted.

Sheets of microfiche are fragile and need dry, cool environments to prevent deterioration and tearing. While they serve an important role in the preservation of history, microfiche takes up storage space, requires time to find the appropriate images, and needs special machinery to read the film. By converting microfiche to a digitized form with the help of document imaging services, your company can maximize its physical storage space and preserve the documents with a more permanent solution.