Records in the News

There are signs this week that we are truly coming out of the recession, and one of those signs hits very close to home, the Records Management Industry. Xerox Corp stock saw the largest jump in over a year. They credit the fact that businesses are spending more on document management along with the company's purchase of Affiliated Computer Services. The success of the stock further demonstrates the need for fully integrated document management services.

New home sales saw a 27% increase last month, the biggest monthly increase in 47 years. The New York Times is crediting the home tax credit, which will expire by the end of the month.

In non-economic news, several North American, European and Asian countries had a teleconference this week about Facebook and other social networking sites. At issue is data privacy and prevention of identity theft. Facebook now has almost half a billion users. If it were a country, it would be the third largest in the world.

Happy Earth Day!!!!

Enjoy these gorgeous views of the earth from the eyes of NASA.

The Home Planet: NASA's View of Earth

Everyone knows the importance of protecting the earth. What you might not know is that GRM Document Management can help your business become greener.

1. Store your paper records offsite. Our energy efficient warehouse is also incredibly efficient in space. We are able to store the maximum number of boxes in the minimum amount of space Our exclusive eAccess technology ensures that no file will be misplaced.

2. Get rid of paper. Check with the laws regarding your industry and shred or recycle paper that has gone beyond its necessary life. This will do several things: It will permanently remove the record from your system, keeping it out of any future litigation or audits. It will make sure that paper no longer consumes resources; just by its very existence, a paper record is using space and the energy needed to maintain that space. Recycling or shredding will help keep it out of the landfills. Even much of the shredded paper is recycled.

3. Go paperless. For many offices, this is an impossibility, but nearly all offices can use a lot less paper. GRM Records Management has a lot of tips for going paperless, including digitizing all current records into an easy to maintain and update web based data base. Don't print unless you really need too. Most emails can be read and stored on the company's server if needed for the future. Scan instead of make copies. One huge advantage to that is that a scanned image is easily searchable, not so with paper.

4. Scan on request. When you need a file from our records repository, ask us to scan it for you and send you an electronic version. It's a less expensive way to access one or a few files. You pay no trip charge and you save the planet from some carbon emissions for the delivery.

5. Let your employees work from home. It could save a ton of gas and increase employee moral. This is easy to do if all of your records are kept on a customized internet based, password protected web portal powered by eAccess. You can even track what your employees are working on and when.

Electronic Medical Records Errors

The Huffington Post did an investigative piece on Electronic Medical Records (EMRs). Their conclusion...not good. The report mentions misread files and general software glitches. An effective EMR system is designed to track a patient from admission to the time the final bill is paid. It should recognize potential drug interactions. It should notify the system of potential abusers. It should ensure that patient care is consistent throughout the care cycle. While this article may not paint a complete picture (how many patient errors were prevented by the EMRs?), it does address some legitimate and preventable concerns.

Who remembers the old computer programmers' acronym GIGO...Garbage In, Garbage Out? Never has this acronym been more true than with the medical conversion to digital records. The first step in the process is fairly simple, scanning existing paper records into a digital format. Many medical offices have decided to do this themselves as a cost saving measure. While in theory, there is nothing wrong with this, it usually doesn't save money and the image quality is often lacking. GRM Document Management is able to scan the records in a fraction of the time. Despite our speed, we have a thorough quality control process, ensuring the integrity of the image. When scanning is done properly, it's a lot more difficult for a record to be misread. We can host the images in a secure web portal or we can integrate with an EMR.

EMRs are expensive and government stimulus money may or may not cover the entire cost of conversion, but it's not the time to be frugal. It's crucial that offices invest in a quality software and in training of their staff to prevent further and more costly problems like government fines and malpractice suits.

Cintas and Google in the News

Ten countries have publicly criticized Google for not protecting its records, or more specifically, its users' records. Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain and Britain have written a joint letter in response to Google rolling out its new social networking site called Buzz, which melded gmail information with the social networking site.

Google says they have made changes in response to the letter, and that they try "very hard to be upfront about the data we collect, and how we use it, as well as to build meaningful controls into our products."

"Of course we do not get everything 100 percent right -- that is why we acted so quickly on Buzz following the user feedback we received," a spokesman said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

Cintas, a company known for a variety of business services, including document management, was selected yesterday by the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council to become a participating organization of its global forum. The forum's goal is for ongoing development of PCI standards and work to evolve the PCI Data Security Standard (DSS) and other payment card data protection standards. The mission of the PCI Security Standards Council is to enhance payment account security by driving education and awareness of PCI security standards. For more information, please visit www.pcisecuritystandards.org.

New Browser Add-On Designed to Curb Google Data Collection

Records management is about protecting records. It's about knowing what should be available and to whom. Google is probably the world's largest repository of information, and not just the type you are looking for. They collect IP addresses, search history, browser type and more. Currently they are using the information for advertising purposes. Have you ever noticed that shortly after you look at a site, especially an eCommerce site, you see an ad for them? It's not coincidence. It's Google using your search history to better serve its customers, its advertisers.

A new project type, called GoogleSharing, is a Firefox add on that uses an anonymous proxy service that disguises your information by giving Google false information for applications which don't require log in.

Google's privacy FAQs state that it saves search engine data such as queries in order to improve the service and for the security of its systems.

In 2009, Google did introduce a dashboard that lets users have some control, but it doesn't show the user all of the information that might have been collected.