There are many ways to ensure that e-discovery does not lead to excessive costs when coming up with a strategy to retain healthcare records.

E-discovery costs in litigation or during an audit can total as much as $30,000 per gigabyte—based on a study from the Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology. Costs can also increase if irrelevant data goes into litigation. For instance, 1,000 pages are on average preserved for every page that is entered as an exhibit.

So Harmony Healthcare IT and Warner Norcross & Judd have come up with several recommendations—found in a whitepaper—for healthcare providers to mitigate legal risks with e-discovery; retain required data; and build a team to develop a long-term data management plan.