Sequest IT – Legal / Risk Management Exchange

Sequest IT is used by the Legal, Risk Management, and Utilization Management departments to request medical records for review and to automatically change the workflow on records from certain requestors such as those known to initiate malpractice suites against the facility.

Legal and Risk Management

• Within Sequest IT, Legal and Risk Management would select from the list of requestors, which requests they want to automatically see. They will automatically receive all of these requests and records for their review. No records can be released until they approve the request and the records.
• The HIM Director or HIM staff may use the system to route medical records for approval by Risk Management and Legal. In this case, the record notification would show up in the email box of the Risk Manager. The Risk Manager would login to the system, and review the record and request. The Risk Manager must approve or reject the release of the record before it can move through the workflow. If approved, the record would move to the next step in the workflow. If rejected, the staff member would review the rejection to see if a corrective action had been added (Example. Have physician sign page 6.) The request would be approved when the corrective action had been completed.
• HIM can provide a list of all legal firms and request types they wish to review before release. Such releases can automatically be sent for review or review and approval before release.

Risk/Utilization Management

Universata can enable the exchange of medical records between Risk/Utilization Management Office and HIM to optimize case management.

• Risk/Utilization Management can request records through the use of PHI-nd IT.
• HIM medical records personnel can scan the records into PHI-nd IT.
• HIM staff within medical records can be trained to support Risk/Utilization Management in the use of PHI-nd IT by Universata.

Benefits of Sequest IT

The benefits of Sequest IT include:

• Reduced Labor – Legal automatically receives those requests it deems most likely to cause the facility legal problems. HIM staff can change the workflow to have Legal review questionable releases.
• Timeliness – Legal sees request immediately, not after they are copied and sent through inter-office mail. No sitting in the inbox under piles of other correspondence.
• Secure, private and auditable – All handling of the request is logged and auditable.