The Work Group on Corrections Health Care Costs, created in 2013, in the Oregon state legislature suggested the funding. The Department of Corrections had petitioned the state government for funds to digitize the records multiple times with little success before the creation of the Work Group, according to the Statesman Journal.
Medical records from the state’s 14,600 current inmates and more than 40,000 former inmates will gradually be migrated onto an EHR system. The process is likely to take months or years because of the volume of records and how much information each contains — some records contain 200 pages, Steve Robbins, head of the DOC’s health services division, told the Statesman Journal. Paper files are sometimes missing as prisoners are moved from facility to facility.
The DOC will keep the existing paper files on record and input new patients into the digital system. Some chronic patients will also be entered into a new system. Mr. Robbins said the department hopes to formally call for bids for EHR platforms in summer 2015, but because of internal processes, a new EHR will likely not be functional until 2016.
