WASHINGTON REPORT BY LAURA SHELTON, CMP
DATIA Supports Electronic Chain of Custody On August 14, 2013, DATIA submited comments to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) supporting its mov- ing forward with allowing an electronic chain of custody form. Tere are currently numer- ous labs, TPAs, and other service providers that are using technology to produce forensi- cally viable print-on-demand and paperless chain of custody forms. In its comments, DATIA stated the many ways that such forms will benefit the drug testing process. a. Te data is input electronically, which eliminates the problems faced by labs, MROs, collectors, and employers trying to read a fax of a copy (which is already very faint and hard to read).
b. Copies 2 and 4 can be sent electronically to the MRO and the employer, which they can then print out.
c. Tis technology allows users to capture either a wet or digital signature thereby satisfying the HHS requirements.
d. Labs, MROs, TPAs, and collection sites spend A LOT of time “chasing paper” to get the necessary copies of the CCF. Tis technology would save all service providers time.
e. Many times aſter expending significant time and resources to get the needed cop- ies of the CCF, one finds out that the copy is illegible. Computer produced and sent PDF copies of these forms would eliminate a tremendous amount of wasted effort and significantly reduce the frustration level with these program requirements.
f. Computer produced forms can be easily stored and saved for retrieval should a form need to be reproduced.
g. Te forced process and procedures using an electronic CCF virtually ensure that the collection will be completed accurately with no information being leſt off/miss- ing, thus meaning that there should be few to no affidavits ever required to be sent to labs by collection sites resulting in beter turnaround time.
h. Computer generated CCFs with the employer and employee’s information set-up electronically can solve several issues including print quality, wrong employer information, eliminate errors by not allow- ing collector to go to the next steps until all necessary information is completed in each section, etc.
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datia focus
fall 2013
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