Global Healthcare Archiving and eDiscovery Market – Tipping Point for Handling Medical Malpractice Cases

Image: Supriya Ghuge

Summary: The global healthcare archiving and eDiscovery market is expected to experience a surge in demand due to the shift from legacy to digitized formats. Data governance polices encourage healthcare providers to comply with regulations for protection of patient data. But medical malpractice cases can threaten the strong run enjoyed by hospitals. Healthcare archiving software can play its part in the defence of hospitals by keeping a digital record of patient data as well as its diagnosis.

Guest post by Supriya Ghuge. Healthcare Consultant


The healthcare industry is on the cusp of transformation due to the transition from paper format to digitized ones. The expansion of the global population as well as the large geriatric populace are obvious factors bound to usher in adoption of digital systems. Healthcare archiving includes the capture and storage of data stored on legacy systems to be managed on a modern format. The vast volume of patient data, medical reports, practitioner prescriptions, medical billings, and patient medical history can generate data which can be overwhelming. Chief information officers at healthcare organizations require software proficient enough to manage the data while adhering to latest data privacy regulations and statutes.

Electronic discovery or eDiscovery software uses a myriad of tools for extracting data stored in digital format such as emails, social media conversations, and medical reports on hard drives. It plays a pivotal role in medical malpractice cases. The setup of eDiscovery software in these organizations can be used for handling such cases with ease.

Archiving of Health Data

The burden on healthcare providers of ensuring the security and sanctity of patient health records while being easily accessible on a central platform is a cumbersome task. But healthcare archiving software compresses the images captured by ultrasound and other imaging devices and stores them on cloud for easy retention. The compatibility of healthcare archiving and eDiscovery with customer relationship management (CRM) software providers can be used in handling the voluminous amount of data generated. Recently, Sonasoft has come to an agreement with Globanet for expanding its eDiscovery search capabilities. The tie-up can culminate in improved indexing and extraction of data from file sharing and collaboration tools, social media platforms, and financial communication tools proving to be an indispensable asset for healthcare clients.

Navigating Legal Waters

Medical litigation is proving to be a bane for healthcare institutions and large hospital chains. Large number of electronic health record (EHR) based cases has warranted the need for healthcare metadata which can provide sufficient evidence for exonerating doctors and resolving wrong claims. According to The Doctor’s Company (TDC), a reputed insurance provider in the U.S., diagnosis related claims had the highest share in malpractice cases and EHR claims which had errors in patient data.

Cyberforensics is relied extensively by lawyers for investigating the trail using a combination of metadata and eDiscovery software. Healthcare providers can use EHRs to indicate the instance of personnel accessin the system for identification of any errors which can be detrimental in the diagnosis of patient problems.

The End Goal

Data governance policies dictate that the onus of protecting health related information of patients falls solely on healthcare providers and insurers. Flouting of rules defined by healthcare IT policies designed to protect patients can result in heavy fines. In essence, healthcare archiving and eDiscovery software providers aim to capture, store, and preserve data in a centralized location to be used by doctors and other hospital staff at their convenience.