Digital Library – A Modern Solution To Investigative Storage

About the Program

Category: Information Technology (Best in Category)

Year: 2023

Health Facilities Inspection Division (HFID) staff are responsible for conducting complaint investigations, federal recertification surveys, and state licensing inspections, among other investigative work, in over 700 long-term care facilities and in more than 5,000 non-long term care facilities. Over the past three years, HFID staff have investigated a yearly average of 11,015 intakes across these licensed facilities. Each of these investigations, in addition to the other regulatory work indicated above, generates a paper packet that may be hundreds of pages of surveyors’ notes, notification letters, collected evidence and a final report of the findings with a provider’s plan of correction. These packets must be retained by the local office in a secure manner for four years and must be readily accessible if requested by legal counsel, requested through the public records act, required for federal and state enforcement purposes, reviewed during an audit or for quality improvement purposes. To improve efficiency and streamline the storage, accessibility and record archival processes, HFID created the Digital Library where all paper packets can be scanned, saved and retrieved in electronic format and organized securely in a cloud-based repository.