Background and Objectives: In the past decade, hospitals in Iran have been heavily ‎interested in electronic storage of paper based medical records using document imaging. ‎But there is no specific guidance or instruction for hospitals in Iran regarding the use of this ‎method. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to design a model for the use of document ‎imaging for paper based medical records keeping in hospitals.‎

Methods: This is cross-sectional and descriptive study was conducted in two phases. In the ‎first phase, the use of document imaging method was investigated in eight hospitals in ‎Khuzestan province. Data was collected using a checklist and on-site visits from hospitals. ‎In the second stage, a model was proposed for using document imaging to keep medical ‎records in hospital. This model presented as a questionnaire and was distributed to 25 ‎experts. The validity of the proposed model was tested in two steps using the Delphi ‎method.
Results: The results of the first phase showed that most hospitals used document imaging ‎as archive for keeping inpatient medical records. All hospitals used document imaging ‎software to index and scan records. In the second phase of the study in two Delphi rounds, ‎overall 129 components for the final model of document imaging implementation were ‎approved by the experts.
Conclusion: The model presented in this study can help hospitals, document imaging ‎service providers, document and health information management specialists to use the ‎document imaging method.‎