Structure and activities of the medical records committees in educational hospitals affiliated to medical sciences universities of Tehran, Iran

Introduction: Given the role of the medical record committee, that is, supervision and quality evaluation of medical records and support of required standards in relation to medical records, a study about current situation of hospital medical record committees was conducted. Methods: This study was an applied research. An evaluation pattern for medical record committees was designed to study the similarities and differences of structure and activities of medical record committees in selected countries and Iran. Then the designed pattern was distributed among experts. Results: Delphi Technique showed, that most of the experts (86.4% frequency) agreed with the components of the model as following: 97.2% with purpose, 63.9% with members' combination of committee, 94.4% with inferior reference, 97.2% with standards, and 91.7% with job description for activities of medical record committee. Conclusion: With respect to deficiencies in medical records instructions and agreement of experts with the proposed pattern, ministry of health and medical education could establish new instructions including comprehensive structure and activities and distribution to all hospitals.