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Patient information management in the massage therapists offices: a tabu?

Hello.

I am looking for information about how the massage therapists collect and organize their patients' information (the clinical one more than the administrative one), and for the moment I didn't find a lot of information about it, except this (quite old) post: http://massagemag.com/massage-blog/massage-collage/2009/08/13/how-i...

Would it mean that the subject is not seen as important for therapists?

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Permalink Reply by Daniel Cohen on May 22, 2012 at 9:22am

Companies have legal advice to create policies and procedures on this. Most individuals I know, especially out call practitioners, ignore it until they or a friend gets in trouble for it. The issue is strictly state specific as privacy laws, record keeping for professionals are state regulated. Since the issue is either legal or in satisfying under writers of insurance it would be good if our organizations provided consulting on this like chambers of commerce do for members regarding labor laws.

We, as a profession, need to be more familiar with business resources. You can't be your own attorney unless you were in a former professional life. I believe schools shouldn't teach this but rather should teach use of resources for massage related business. Schools are usually behind on the legal updates or the instructors don't understand the laws themselves. Using resources is a skill as important as critical thinking.

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Permalink Reply by Matthieu Blit on May 22, 2012 at 9:32am

Quite interesting to see the legal side of the theme. I suppose you are talking about the data privacy issues, how they are stored, accessed and transmitted.

My question was more about the technical side of the data management, the processes and the tools therapists use to organize their information.

I suppose there are policies and procedures for that, and that these could be taught by schools.

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Permalink Reply by Daniel Cohen on May 22, 2012 at 9:54am

data storage of personal information by businesses is a major issue of the state regulations. Many of the same online services used for scheduling include the data collection and storage.

I still think that teaching about professional resources and critical thinking in school would address this.

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Permalink Reply by Matthieu Blit on May 22, 2012 at 10:05am

And it seems that some schools are teaching it. I am currently having a small chat with a professor from the Alliance for MAssage Therapy Education who is explaining that these issues are adressed by the course.