A Beginner's Guide to Medical Record Analysis by DMR Collation

Welcome to DMR Collation’s training on A Beginner’s Guide to Medical Record Analysis, presented by Caroline Packer, Managing Director of DMR Collation.

DMR Collation are a UK based Pagination agency, established in 2010, which provides services to lawyers in the collation and analysis of medical records. Whilst the majority of our instructions are in the areas of personal injury and clinical negligence litigation, we also work on other matters which require the collation and analysis of medical records such as historic abuse, contentious probate and family law proceedings. Our job, in a nutshell, is to assist law firms in preparing their cases for expert reporting.

We are conscious that there are a large portion of claims where funding for professional collation and analysis of medical records will not be available. These lower value cases will still, however, require some degree of analysis in-house prior to instruction of an expert.

The aim of this training is to assist lawyers in running claims more efficiently by allowing them to:

(a) Formulate a timeline of events.
(b) Compile a list of missing records so these can be obtained prior to expert instructions.
(c) Identify any relevant pre-existing medical history; and
(d) Prepare a list of injuries to help with early claim valuation.

This training will also be useful to those legal practitioners who wish to have a better understanding of the work that is involved in the analysis of medical records and will provide a number of helpful tips to help with your understanding of medical records in general.

To provide a quick overview of the training, firstly we cover a beginner’s guide to GP and Hospital records. We then go on to examine what constitutes a relevant pre-existing medical history and how to compile a list of injuries. Next we look at how to assemble a timeline of events and identify missing records. We then explore the issue of redaction and problems with redaction software before looking at the usefulness of schedules of radiology. Finally we leave you with some helpful tips on how to prepare instructions for pagination companies.