Deciding how long to hold on to specific records in your facility can be a challenging task, especially when so many different types of records cross your desk every day. If you’re a pack rat like us, it’s tempting to hold on to everything indefinitely – an option we know can be space and cost prohibitive, especially within the nursing home environment. Our reluctance to dispose of records is also driven by several critical questions, such as: What if I need this record to defend our facility in a lawsuit? What if a state or government agency audits or investigates our facility for issues contained within this record?

This is why it makes sense from a compliance and risk management standpoint to have a comprehensive and consistently applied record retention policy that includes all forms of electronic data. There are many reasons to implement a record retention policy, including compliance with statutory or regulatory requirements, maintaining control of records during litigation and improving your responsiveness and efficiency in complying with discovery demands, and avoiding the disclosure of unnecessary or obsolete records.