RETENTION OF HEALTH RECORDS Retention means the transfer of records from active to inactive

storage, to microfilming, scanned images or eventually to destruction. It is generally accepted that

health records should be kept for as long as they are being used for patient care, medico-legal and
research and teaching purposes. If there are national legislated and legal minimum retention periods
for health records, then these must be strictly adhered to. If space is not readily available, a decision
must be made to determine the length of time records should be kept in an 'active' file. After this
time they should be transferred to an 'inactive' area. This decision is based upon legal requirements,
and is usually made by the facility’s Governing Board on advice from its legal counsel, the Health
Record Committee, and the health information management/health record professional. In a
number of hospitals, the filing area space is limited; therefore many health record departments will
keep a limited number of health records in an active file area, which is in or close to the department.
Records that are considered to be inactive are then moved to another, more physically distant area.
This area may be within the facility, or offsite at a space either owned by the hospital or stored at a
commercial storage vendor. Typically, records are purged on a yearly basis and transferred to the
inactive file. If a patient is readmitted and his health record is in the inactive file, it is "reactivated",
that is, it is brought up to the active file and remains there for the next five years. The latest year of
activity can be indicated on the record folder with special labels indicating the year of most recent
activity. In automated systems the computer can generate a list of "older" records.