Industry Standard for length of image storage ?

Wed, 5 Aug 2015 21:29:36 GMT

Hello all,

Is there a standard within the ophthalmic industry for the length of time in which images reside on a practice's server? We currently archive and backup images (OIS/Merge) to our server, and can retrieve images dating back to late 2003/early 2004. Images taken prior to that are located on Archive CD or DVD.

My CEO is asking. He also asked about the imaging of patients who have passed away...for how long we required to retain images of the deceased?

Lastly, if images are removed / relocated to another storage device, does anyone have a suggestion or recommendation?

Thanks!

Jennifer Lummis COA, CRA

Maine Eye Center

Portland, ME

Wed, 5 Aug 2015 21:34:22 GMT

You have two issues here. What is legally mandated by your state, and what is desired by your practice. Check the state laws for records retention. All MR policies now include a provision for the retention of digital data. Here in California it is 10 years off site, 3 years on site, and nearly forever if images created on a child.

Out of good form, we keep records, digitally, much longer. Not necessarily on the instrument. On a backed up Shared Drive on our own internal server. Our server is then connected to the server farm of the hospital for a double redundancy. I can't think of any medical reason, except in the case of tumor or inherited disease, where keeping the records longer than 10 years would be called for. We always encourage our patients to be the keepers of their own records.

Respectfully
Denice BArsness, CRA, COMT, ROUB, CDOS
Technical Director
Ophthalmic Diagnostic Center

Thu, 6 Aug 2015 14:35:01 GMT

Thank you Denise, that was very helpful. Per your suggestion, I'm investigating our state laws about this. Hopefully some other folks will chime in as well.

Jennifer