I agree with Fred's approach.  The actual certificate could have a specific (even short-term) retention period (taking into consideration legal retention requirements) as long as you are capturing and permanently keeping the metadata about the actual disposition.  I can't think of any risk in keeping that metadata permanently (maybe mandated by law/regulation?!?), but I can think of related risk if you delete that disposition metadata as some point - I can't tell you the number of times I have had to rely on disposition metadata going back decades, especially for compliance purposes.  

Of course, be careful to account for that disposition metadata when you migrate to a new system - I have seen situations where that wasn't planned for, planned for poorly, or the information was truncated - all of these scenarios resulting in major headaches.

Good luck,

- Brett



Brett Wise CRM, CIPP/US, IGP, CIP | American Board of Pediatrics
Director of Records & Information Management
111 Silver Cedar Court
Chapel Hill, NC 27514
[log in to unmask]

List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance
To unsubscribe from this list, click the below link. If not already present, place UNSUBSCRIBE RECMGMT-L or UNSUB RECMGMT-L in the body of the message.
mailto:[log in to unmask]