A healthier world for future generations- this is what my company is looking to advance. In 2020 I was contracted to put in place a sound Records Management System for a well-established company that is working to advance health science and innovation. This company works with not only governments but also the private sector and civil society in order to design and deliver high-quality care and treatment to people in developing communities.

For a mere 25 years I have been involved in my passion – Information Management for Healthcare. When I was offered the project, I happily accepted and set-off enthusiastically to start my new journey. As my team and I began we were notified by the Insurance Company that all paper records stored in their Head Office needed to be moved off-site immediately for safety and security purposes. Within 2 days we had to pack up the entire basement which totalled over 2998 boxes! Can you believe it? 2998 boxes!

Through our many efforts to create an inventory of all physical paper records that was stored across the organisation, which I may admit become a bit tedious. Daunting is one of few words that I can describe this challenge as not many knew what they were required to do. Then the world was hit by COVID and we all went into lock down… This stopped the physical work being done on-site but this only encouraged me more to challenge myself and work harder to achieve my goals (which at the time seemed impossible).

In June 2020 the hard work began- back on site with new COVID regulations we needed to ensure that the ENTIRE organisation was compliant. We started with the Head Office and worked or way down to gather all of the physical documents and ensure they were indexed. This included the physical offices as well as storage areas across every department!

After the various task that had to be accomplished such as collecting, indexing, and sorting the records, we worked with each department to decide on what action items to take:

• Garbage – Destroy Immediately (± 20 Rubbish Dump)
• Recyclable – Place in Recyclable Bins for Off-Site Destruction (± 50 Bins)
• Personal Information – Place in Confidential Bins for on-site destruction (± 50 Bins)
• Important – Bulk Scan and Destroy (± 3.8 million Documents)
• Very Important – Sent to a Temporary Storage Facility (± 3 million documents)
• Critical – Sent to Long Term Storage Facility (2998 Boxes)

Over the past two years, I have grown and learnt more than I could have imagined. It’s been a challenging and sometime a stressful experience but also, most importantly, a fun and exciting one! The past two decades and a half have been a hard yet a memorable challenge. These challenges have made me into the person I am today and I hope to continue to grow and learn- I see a bright future for myself! One where I help others to prosper(and hopefully one with a few less boxes!!).