Document Control

[BrianD]

hello everyone. my hospital group(6 hospitals, 20-something clinics) is realizing that we need to implement some kind of document control system. ideally, this system would allow us to be more uniform, more efficient, and able to track-back and identify where bad ideas came from (heh!). anyone have any experience establishing a document-control plan? any suggestions?

thanks,

b.

[Mary**]

We have recently purchased a commerical document contol program mostly for procedures. It is tedious, but suppoesed to be worth it. Send me your email and I will give you the names of the company.

[bbonnema]

We pruchased one as well. It is called iPassport. It seems like the way to go although it is a lot to set up it works very well.

[brobinson]

The AABB web site had commendable practices that shows a variety of ways to implement a document control system. I would recommend checking there.

[Mabel Adams]

We have a purchased program that often seems more trouble than it is worth. They are working to make it work better for us. Like much software, I think it must be customized by someone that really understands the needs and works hard to get it right.

[dgibaud]

I was involved in looking for a lab-wide document control program about a year ago. Since that time it evolved into a "system-wide" search, and of course, the lab is no longer involved. For my money, the best program we saw was from a company called LUCIDOC. They seemed to be more laboratory friendly, that is, in generating a document life-cycle with automatic reminders for signatures, and all of the documentation required by the various accrediting agencies. Give them a call. They did a real nice demo for us over the web.

Don

[blarney]

We are also a network of 7 hospitals in the St. Louis area and we are in the process of standardizing all of the SOP's and forms. We have created a document control site on our network - a sharepoint site, controlled by an admin. It controls all documents in and out with complete tracking, pathologists can check a doc out, review and sign-off. It also sends reminders when SOP's need review. So far, it is working nicely for us and we checked it out with CAP and it was OK with them as far as compliance with doc control regulations.

[Deb]

We are in the process of setting up a web based system that we purchased primarily for Document Control. But it also offers several other modules (at no extra cost) for corrective action, project planning, training, etc. The system we purchased is HQMS: Harrington Quality Management System. You can check their web page out and contact them for follow-up if you are interested in what you see. If you want to visit more about it send me an email and we can set up a phone call. dschue@altru.org