Question

Your organization keeps paper records for ten years, and you are purging records for destruction. What concern do you have with staff pulling records strictly based on that ten-year indicator?

Your HIM department is moving to a new office. In the moving process, in the back of a storage closet, a box of old registries is found. These contain records of births at the organization 50 years ago. What should be done with those records?

Answer 1

Staff should be concerned about legal, historical, or research value when purging records solely based on age, and must adhere to privacy laws. For found records, an evaluation by professionals is essential to determine if they possess historical or research significance.

Step-by-step explanation:

When purging records based on a ten-year indicator, staff should be concerned that not all records may be suitable for destruction solely based on age. Important considerations include whether records still have continuing value for legal, historical, or research purposes.

Additionally, staff must ensure that all privacy laws and regulations regarding the protection of personal information are strictly adhered to during the purging process. In the case of the discovery of birth records that are 50 years old, careful consideration must be given to their historical and potential research value.

These birth records could represent significant value to research into historical health practices or genealogical studies, and therefore, they should be evaluated by an archivist or records management professional before any action is taken.