likely heard the old adage: “If it isn’t documented, then it didn’t

happen.” (And yes, I heard your eyes roll after reading that.) Yet, it’s true.
Documentation is vital to every aspect and functional area of a medical device
company. Documentation serves as a means to collaborate and communicate
within your company. Documentation is critical to demonstrating compliance
to regulatory bodies and auditing organizations.
Yes, regulatory agencies and external auditors take documentation seriously.
In 2019, FDA issued 15% more inspection citations than the previous year.
Let’s put this in simple terms. The strength of your medical device company is
directly related to how you manage documentation. Documentation is essential
to your QMS. Documentation is an ISO and FDA requirement. Document control
issues are still a very big challenge and all too common during FDA inspections
and ISO audits.
The question is, if documentation is so important, then why do so many companies
struggle with it?
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 3
This in-depth guide will take a deep dive into the problems that tend to afflict
document control activities, provide detailed explanations of the procedures that
make your documentation more efficient, and offer proven effective methods for
implementing and leveraging a robust document management system that will
catapult the success of your organization and medical device.

WHAT IS DOCUMENT CONTROL?

Document control is a practice that organizations use to keep their teams
accountable for tracking documents. Companies do this to ensure they follow
high-quality processes and satisfy regulatory requirements.
In other words, document control refers to the policies and procedures medical
device companies use to manage the many documents that flow through
different departments, stakeholders, and third parties throughout the medical
device product lifecycle.
You should want to document your work because ultimately, the quality of
human lives is at stake. The documentation you have in place should support
the safety and efficacy of your products. The documentation should demonstrate
consistency, reproducibility, and repeatability of processes. The documentation
should be an effective way of communicating what to do, when to do it, and how
it was done.
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 4
DOCUMENT CONTROL STRUCTURE
Medical device companies run a multitude of different procedures to handle
various inputs and outputs. Document control encompasses all of the policies
that ensure that every single one of those procedures is accounted for and
recorded. This includes how and when a procedure was executed and whether
it was done in accordance with a company’s documented policy.
It’s helpful to think about document control in terms of a top-down hierarchy.
The top is your quality manual, which sets the company’s quality philosophies
and policies; the next level down includes documented quality procedures
and your device master record (DMR); the next level includes all documentation
of forms, specifications, drawings, and work instructions; and the foundation
of your documentation is made up of your records and files, which include
quality records, design history files (DHF), and device
history records (DHR).
The hierarchy ranges from top level policies and
procedures at the top of the pyramid to specific
records at the bottom. The top level policies
and procedures provide direction on
how to do things within the QMS. The
records at the bottom prove the
employees are following those
policies and procedures.
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 5
DOCUMENT CONTROL TERMINOLOGY
In addition to what we’ve already covered in this guide, document control
contains a number of key terms that are important to know and distinguish,
which we list and define below.
• Document control vs. document management: Some companies use
the term “document management” instead of “document control”. Yes,
these terms are very closely related. Think of “document management”
as the system and process of managing and maintaining documentation.
Think of “document control” as the means by which you generate,
review, approve, and maintain revision history of the documentation.
• Quality manual: A quality manual describes your company’s QMS,
including the scope of it, a summary, exclusions from ISO 13485 (if any), the
responsibilities and roles of your various team members, and more. The
specifics of each quality manual is dependent on the size of the company.
• SOP (Standard operating procedure): An SOP, generally, defines a
specific process or procedure. In this context, a document control SOP
focuses on the roles, responsibilities, procedures, and checks involved
in compliant document control.
• Change Order: A change order is a compilation of every decision you’ve
made throughout the entire change management process pertaining
to a certain document(s). Every department impacted by a particular
change order will need to approve this.
• Design history file (DHF): A DHF is a compilation of design and
development records that show the design controls process was
properly followed and documented throughout product development.
You need to maintain a separate design history file for each type of
device under development.
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 6
• Device master record (DMR): A DMR contains or references all the
information necessary to build and test your device. Each device master
record has to adhere to FDA 21 CFR Part 820.181 and ISO 13485:2016
section 4.2.3 (referred to as “medical device file”).
• Device history record (DHR): A DHR contains or references all the
records that demonstrate that you manufactured a device according
to your DMR. Your device history record needs to be maintained for
every batch, lot, or unit.
• Risk management file (RMF): An RMF contains or references all
of your risk management activities, documentation, and records.
You can organize it by an individual product or groups of products.
Understanding this medical device terminology is an important part of
establishing your document control processes and integrating it into
your QMS.

DOCUMENT CONTROL
REQUIREMENTS
As mentioned earlier, documentation is the backbone of an effective QMS and
directly correlates to the strength of your medical device company. Companies
that can leverage good document control and easily prove compliance can
afford to focus on product development, growth, and improving efficiencies.
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 7
However, companies with poor document control always seem to be preparing
for the next audit.
Let’s go over some of the most important requirements your document control
system will have to be able to handle.
FDA 21 CFR PART 820.40
FDA 21 CFR PART 820.40 pertains to document controls and requires medical
devices to establish and maintain procedures to control all pertinent and applicable
documents described throughout the FDA Quality System Regulations (QSR).
While the specific details of document controls defined by FDA is relatively
short, the other parts of the QSR describe additional requirements for specific
documentation necessary to effectively address the regulations.
ISO 13485:2016
ISO 13485:2016 is the globally harmonized standard for medical device quality
management systems. There is significant overlap with FDA’s quality system
regulation (QSR) and, generally speaking, compliance with one will set you up for
compliance with the other.
The guidelines from ISO 13485 call for rigorous record-keeping. Section 4.2.4
(Control of documentation) in particular calls for document control that extends
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 8
document maintenance through the life cycle of the device. And like the FDA
QSR, additional documentation details are described throughout ISO 13485.
Important aspects of document control per FDA and ISO 13485 include:
• Identifying the appropriate individual(s) to review procedures for
adequacy.
• Approvals shall include date and signature of the approvers.
• Documents shall be available at all applicable points of use.
• Obsolete versions to be removed for points of use.
• Any changes shall be reviewed and approved by the same
functions involved with the original review and approval.
• Approved changes to documents shall be communicated
to applicable users.
EU MDR
Europe’s new medical device regulation (EU MDR), which will go into effect on
May 26, 2021 following a one-year delay of its initial enforcement date, comes
with a host of changes relevant to document control.
EU MDR emphasizes a focus on the total product lifecycle, including post-market
surveillance. The associated requirements necessitate a document control
system that can produce items like a post-market surveillance report, which
summarizes the results of all your post-market surveillance data, including any
corrective actions.
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 9
Higher-risk devices may demand an even more rigorous documentation system
to produce items, such as a periodic safety update report (as noted in Article 86),
that require annual updates.
Article 25 of the regulation also presents major changes. MDR designates
the “economic operator” status to distributors, importers, and EU-authorized
representatives—each with its own documentation standards.

21 CFR PART 11 COMPLIANCE IS

ESSENTIAL
Does FDA 21 CFR Part 11 apply to you? Chances are, probably so, unless your
company is completely and entirely paper-based. In fact, a lot of companies try to
avoid electronic records and signatures for fear of Part 11.
Realize this: If you send documents via email, have a server where electronic
versions are stored, and/or sign with “wet” signature then scan, then you have
electronic records and Part 11 is applicable.
When it comes to electronic document control, compliance with FDA’s 21 CFR
Part 11 is essential. Part 11 regulates electronic documentation and electronic
Check out our Essential Guide To Preparing Your QMS For EU MDR
to learn more.
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 10
signatures. Being noncompliant is not an option if you intend to legally market
your device in the United States.
21 CFR PART 11 OVERVIEW
Part 11 of the Code of Federal Regulations Title 21 states that companies using
electronic records shall “secure, computer-generated, time-stamped audit trails
to independently record the data and time of operator entries, and actions that
create, modify, or delete electronic records.”
In 1997, FDA issued and codified standards for the records and signatures they’ll
accept. This applies to all FDA-regulated industries, such as pharmaceuticals and
biotech, but our focus will remain on the applicability to medical devices.
Check out our FDA 21 CFR Part 11 guide to learn more.
eQMS skeptics argue that sticking to paper systems will be easier because using
an eQMS means your systems must be subject to validation. In reality, validation
isn’t as hard as skeptics make it out to be, especially when software from
companies like Greenlight Guru is validated out of the box.
PART 11 VALIDATION
Part 11 is part of 21 CFR Part 11, a set of FDA regulations that define acceptable
criteria for electronic records and signatures.
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 1 1
Part 11 is notoriously confusing among medical device professionals. In 2003,
FDA released a guidance document that clarified previous regulations and laid
out requirements for software validation, audit trails, legacy system management,
and record control.
FDA separates Part 11 into three sections: General Provisions, Electronic
Records, and Electronic Signatures.
• General provisions: This section covers the scope of Part 11, defines key
terms, and outlines how companies can implement it.
• Electronic records: This section establishes the requirements companies
must follow to administer compliant electronic record-keeping systems.
• Electronic signatures: This section covers requirements for electronic
signatures, electronic signature components, and controls for codes and
passwords.
Some of the confusion and stress from Part 11 comes from using the wrong tools.
A QMS that isn’t designed for the medical device industry will require reengineering
from the get-go. Since medical device manufacturing best practices
and templates don’t come equipped in most general purpose systems, there will
be added risks to account for every step of the way.
The more you have to customize your environment, the less dependable it
becomes as requirements change. A custom environment means you have
to configure and conduct every test yourself.
As your company evolves and regulatory standards change, you’ll need to
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 12
regularly reconfigure and validate your QMS. This makes Part 11 validation
intimidating.

HOW DOES A DOCUMENT

MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IMPACT
DOCUMENT CONTROL?
Without a good system to manage it, your documentation becomes chaotic.
The more chaotic your document control system becomes, the more likely the
documents you complete will end up in a pile of other documents, leaving you
with little control over the ability to trace, retrieve, and check them.
This isn’t the fault of your team, but rather the fault of legacy systems that
work against your team. These legacy systems survive because of legacy
myths—ideas that make them seem as effective as modernized solutions.
And this is where the concept of “document management” becomes very
important. Think of document management as the system to manage all aspects
of your company’s documents and records.
Document management is the core foundational element of every medical
device company. A company’s success is entirely dependent on the quality
and robustness of their document management system and practices. Yet,
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 13
sadly, all too many medical device companies fail to emphasize the importance
of document management. Or maybe they choose to deprioritize efforts on
document management in lieu of other areas deemed more important.
YOUR DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IS WORKING
AGAINST YOUR TEAM
You might have the best quality professionals available on your team, but without
a good system, you can’t set them up for success. Your documents become
information dumping grounds when quality professionals have nothing but ad
hoc procedures and cumbersome practices.
Without a good system, quality professionals are stuck playing traffic cop,
chasing down documents, and routinely interrupting team members to check
and double-check whether a particular document was signed.
Plain and simple, it makes for bad team morale and worse document control.
Good document control allows your quality team to focus on strategic initiatives.
Bad document control leaves quality professionals performing low value-add
activities. And your document management system should help streamline and
promote good document control.
Document control affects and is affected by people from engineering, marketing,
operations and beyond. Each department needs to be assigned a role, a way in
which they should utilize and leverage the company’s document control system.
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 14
When that process is scattered, every additional hand makes it incrementally
harder to manage.
Bad document management systems just don’t scale. Systems that don’t scale
translate into an increase in resource allocation to manage an increase of
documents. This creates a fragile, confusing, error-prone system that’s costly to
staff and manage.
The topic of document management tends to be very polarizing to nearly
all medical device professionals. Usually, there are two camps regarding
document management. Those who embrace its importance. Or those who resist
documentation and only yield because they have to in order to comply. For the latter,
I believe there are some underlying reasons, conventional wisdom, and/or historical
practices that reinforce those feelings of animosity towards document management.
Let me elaborate a bit on some of those negative underlying reasons some feel
animosity towards document management.
First point of contention often relates to documentation for the sake of
compliance. Don’t mishear what I’m about to say—yes, compliance is very
important. However, if your reason for documentation is only for the sake of
demonstrating compliance, then this misses the mark and intention.
I’ve seen countless cases where medical device professionals follow blindly and
generate documentation to satisfy something a procedure states simply to check
a box and satisfy an internal company requirement. I personally have worked
within these types of environments before.
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 15
Filling out a form and documenting things that did not seem to relate to my
workflow nor seeming to add value drove me crazy. And sometimes I would
challenge the powers that be about these situations only to hear a response
that stated I had to document this in order to be compliant.
Fortunately, I learned years later that there are a litany of ways to interpret
medical device regulations. Most interpretations I have observed are to dictate
over-documentation.
I have a different point of view: document the bare minimum to demonstrate
compliance and keep document management as simplistic, straightforward
as possible. Said another way, as a medical device professional, I should agree
that the things I document are value-add events.
Another point of contention relating to document management is internal
misalignment of what is expected and required to be documented. And to
illustrate this a bit further, I’d like to share a brief story from when I started my
consulting practice many years ago.
The engagement involved providing support to help a startup with their QMS.
I stepped in to help another consultant, who at the time had responsibilities
for quality, regulatory, and clinical. Efforts were ramping up on the product
development front and having one person to effectively manage quality,
regulatory, and clinical was just too much.
When I got engaged, the QMS had already been drafted. My first task was to
familiarize myself with the “established” QMS. I did so by doing an audit of sorts
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 16
to compare the QMS against FDA 21 CFR Part 820 and ISO 13485. The results of
this audit was thumbs up; the QMS met the requirements defined by FDA and ISO.
My next step was to continue with audit-like activities to compare the company’s
documentation against the SOPs within the QMS. I learned very quickly that the
actual company documentation practices and workflows did not align with the
QMS. Or maybe better stated: The QMS SOPs were written in a way that did not
match how the resources actually conducted their work.
Sadly, variations of my story happen a lot in the medical device industry.
It’s almost as if those responsible for defining QMS and documentation
requirements define the criteria in a vacuum and do not include the process
owners and stakeholders in the process.
DISTINGUISH BETWEEN DOCUMENT CONTROL MYTH
AND REALITY
There are often unacknowledged assumptions that leave existing document
control problems hidden from companies’ view. These myths make it easy to
believe that the system working against you is actually working well enough.
MISPLACED DESIRE TO INNOVATE
Myth #1: Too much focus on document control will stifle innovation.
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 17
This simply isn’t true. What slows down innovation more than anything
is asking team members to locate misplaced documents or worse, much
worse, failing to find a requested document in the middle of an audit.
Warning letters stifle innovation more than documentation ever will.
This may be true during the initial phase of using these tools, but the costs
will inevitably add up.
Paper systems restrict collaboration and make it difficult to track
document versions. That’s troublesome when most companies don’t
keep all their staff in one building, especially in the era of coronavirus
and remote work. And as your company scales and grows, paper-based
approaches are nearly impossible to maintain effectively over time.
General purpose document/file management tools like Dropbox and
Google Drive offer some basic tracking features, but don’t comply
with FDA 21 CFR Part 11, and come unvalidated. It’s only a matter of time
before the costs saved upfront will resurface later in compounding
fashion.
MISPLACED DESIRE TO SAVE COSTS
Myth #2: Paper and general-purpose tools are the cheapest and easiest
solution.
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 18
FDA 21 CFR Part 11 requires the meeting of strict standards for
implementing and operating an eQMS.
If you’re not using a purpose-built, industry-specific QMS, then customizing,
managing, and validating tools like SharePoint will seem like more of a
hassle than sticking with paper. With a purpose-built Medical Device QMS,
such as Greenlight Guru, the Part 11 compliance guardrails are built-in.
Identifying and correcting these assumptions is the first step toward regaining
document control. Once you can see past the lure of legacy systems, you can
start working your way out of them.

5 WAYS DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT

CAN IMPROVE YOUR MEDICAL
DEVICE ORGANIZATION
Once you have an effective document management system, you can leverage it
in numerous ways across your organization.
MISPLACED DESIRE TO REMAIN COMPLIANT
Myth #3: It's difficult to ensure an eQMS is compliant.
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 19
Document control isn’t a single procedure, but rather an ongoing process that
extends across the lifecycle of the product, influencing processes at every
stage. The better you hone this process, the better you can leverage these five
advantages of an effective document management system.
1. BETTER ACCESSIBILITY TO DOCUMENTS
A good document management system makes every single one of your
documents, and every single version, quickly and easily accessible. This enables
you to inspect and review documentation before signing off on new stages of the
product lifecycle. If something seems amiss, you can revert to previous versions
and trace any component to identify and correct any issues found.
Good document management streamlines change management so your team is
no longer playing ping pong with your change packet. Automatic version control
means your documents are always up to date, and old versions are inaccessible
to anyone without the right document-level permissions. Said another way, a
good document management system should easily and effectively take care of
document control.
2. GREATER RESPONSIVENESS FROM KEY STAKEHOLDERS
Good document management creates a more responsive organization. This
level of responsiveness can inadvertently provide a huge boost to team morale,
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 20
as well. Hunting for documents can become contentious. It can lead to fingerpointing
and accusations as to who’s responsible, a situation fraught with strife
that can plague teams.
Instead, teams should have the tools that allow them to channel that energy
through a collective response to solving challenging problems or creating
innovative quality designs. In the case of an inspection, a responsive team is able
to fulfill every document request immediately, instead of scrambling to surface
the necessary information and hoping it will suffice.
A team with good document management can be proactive, not reactive. Rather
than expecting to manage any situation through damage control mode, proactive
teams stay ahead of regulators and deal with issues before they plant their roots
and become systemic.
3. EASIER COMPLIANCE ACTIVITIES
One of the major differences between modern, purpose-built document
management and control compared to legacy document control is the availability
of system-driven compliance instead of employee-driven compliance.
Employee-driven compliance is carried out entirely by the individuals within an
organization who are responsible for creating, following, and finding documents
that demonstrate compliance. This can mean long days and burdensome,
manual tasks. It’s not fun work, and it’s certainly not rewarding work.
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 21
System-driven compliance relies on the document control and quality
management system to automatically generate, organize and track documents.
When your system drives compliance, document control is preprogrammed to
enable compliance with seamless tracking mechanisms, like determining which
documents have been executed by whom and when.
Let me share a short example from a Greenlight Guru customer.
The team at PhotoniCare was working on a device that helps pediatricians better
diagnose ear infections when they realized their manual documentation system
was becoming increasingly burdensome and too unwieldy to ensure future
compliance needs.
After implementing Greenlight Guru, the team remembers feeling an immediate
difference in terms of the control they had over their growing volume of
documents. They were no longer spending countless hours manually assembling
their design history file, Greenlight Guru provided one out-of-the-box that was
ready to turn into their own.
4. MORE ACCOUNTABILITY AROUND BUSINESS PRACTICES
Document control enables your organization to create greater levels of
accountability. This benefits not just your teams—in-house and remote—but also
your processes.
With the right document management system, you can set up review tracks for
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 22
each document type. That means that each time someone uses a document, your
system indicates the revision history and what changes have been made over time.
This is particularly advantageous to teams whenever there’s a misunderstanding
about a process; document control provides a means for accountability that you
can use to identify and correct any incongruencies. This level of accountability
ensures objectivity and clarity from start to finish.
Accountability isn’t a purely punitive measure. When you set up review tracks,
workflows become streamlined as a result. Only the person(s) responsible for
managing a particular change will be assigned, so there’s a huge time-savings
advantage that transpires from this, as well.
5. IMPROVED DOCUMENT SECURITY
A good document management system keeps your documents, and the
information contained inside, safe and secure. An ad hoc document control
system tends to rely on the security practices of outside vendors that don’t share
your incentives. Your email, storage, and messaging providers haven’t necessarily
accounted for the specific security parameters necessary to ward off potential
threats and to meet the security requirements of the medical device industry.
A cloud-based QMS with a document management system like Greenlight Guru,
on the other hand, provides a secure experience tailored to the needs of medical
device companies. Users can set document-level permissions, as well as userbased
permissions, to ensure you’re providing the appropriate level of document
access to the correct resources.
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 23

HOW TO REGAIN (DOCUMENT)

CONTROL WITHIN YOUR QMS
The problem is clear. When you’re not in control of your documents, you risk
running afoul of ISO and FDA requirements. Moreover, you risk losing your ability
to manage quality throughout the lifecycle of your device.
Effective document control AND document management is within your reach.
Good document control enables collaboration and compliance. As different users
update and circulate artifacts, everyone can stay engaged in the process and
work on the right documents. Version control keeps them organized, and your
QMS ensures traceability between moving parts.
This is the vision to work toward.
RIGHT-SIZE YOUR DOCUMENT CONTROL SYSTEM AS YOUR
COMPANY GROWS
Document control is core to your QMS. But often, we see a QMS is out of sync
with the size of the company using it. That results in document control that offers
little to no control.
You don’t need your entire QMS ready on day one. You can build your QMS in
stages, in tandem with your company’s growth.
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 24
That’s why we recommend right-sizing your QMS as you build it. This means
molding the size of your QMS to match the size of your company. Right-sizing
your QMS ensures you build the quality procedures you need, as you need them.
A sprawling QMS makes it hard to see document control needs amid a multitude
of other processes. Quality systems tend to either be too light, using language
that’s vague and ambiguous, or too heavy, using language that burdens your
team with an overwhelming amount of specifics.
A right-sized QMS gives you the space to prioritize document control. You can
focus on a few documentation aspects to set yourself on the right track as you
begin to right-size your QMS.
The first is performing an internal audit, which can provide valuable insight into
the performance of your internal processes to reveal what’s working and what
might require deprecation. The second is conducting a gap analysis of your QMS
to understand which procedures must be in place for compliance and how they
should function.
When your QMS fits your company, you’ll find it won’t be too unwieldy to follow
or so small that it lacks the capacity to manage key documents. When you strike
this balance, true quality becomes a natural byproduct.
You can maintain this balance by following a phased approach and build out the
rest of your documentation as your company evolves.
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 25
BUILD A DOCUMENTATION STRATEGY TO GUIDE YOUR
GROWTH
Documenting without a plan is risky. You may end up documenting too little,
leaving you vulnerable to announced FDA inspections, or you may end up
documenting too much, creating a burdensome sprawl of documents.
The key, similar to right-sizing your QMS, is to determine your needs ahead
of time and build your documentation from the ground up.
Think carefully about medical device product realization and the lifecycle of
your device. Map out all the types of documents these processes will require
you to generate.
Before you actually document a single thing, determine who owns each
document, how long each document needs to be kept, and where you’re storing
these documents.
From here, you can start building a document strategy that will guide
your growth.
REBUILD DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT IN PHASES ONCE YOUR
COMPANY IS ESTABLISHED
When your company is more established, improving and updating your
document management requires a different tack.
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 26
We recommend breaking down your document management system into
phases and attacking each phase with a well-thought-out plan.
Early-on, it’s relatively easy to take apart your processes and start over.
For midsize to large companies, however, rethinking systems and processes
can be daunting. By the time your company is employing 50, 100, or even
200 people, there are all sorts of personnel, job duties, and tools tied up in
existing systems.
It’s easy to feel “in debt” to the tools and approaches you’ve already established
by continuing to invest in it, rather than consider the possibility that a total
divestment and reinvestment may be your best bet. In other words, the shortterm
costs of rebuilding eclipse the long-term benefits of building a sustainable
system for document management.
This can be an intimidating thought for companies because it’s assumed that the
rebuilding process needs to happen all at once.
Create a quality plan, break each process into tasks, and schedule each task to
be completed within a practical timeline. If you follow this direction deliberately
and carefully, rebuilding your document management system will be easier than
you initially thought.
Let me share one more Greenlight Guru customer story from Centese.
Centese was managing their design controls and risk management using Excel,
updating spreadsheets and manually documenting any changes. This became
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 27
too burdensome and time-consuming of a task, especially with their sights set
on achieving 510(k) clearance from FDA.
Fast forward to now where the entire Centese team finally is able to enjoy
value-add activities through the adoption of a purpose-built document
management system. Their team can streamline processes and maintain total
control over their documentation while also having full traceability of documents
and other connected processes within the QMS platform.
Did I mention they also received 510(k) clearance in record time after
implementing Greenlight Guru?
Despite the initially daunting prospect of rebuilding a QMS, the Centese team
found it surprisingly easy. With the backing of Greenlight Guru and a solid plan,
they were able to build a new QMS and reap all the benefits of a better system—
all without the strain many companies might expect.

TYPES OF DOCUMENT CONTROL

SYSTEMS
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room here: your actual document control systems.
Every company, starting with the smallest startup to the largest enterprise, has a
document control system. The real question is whether or not it’s good.
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 28
Your tools greatly influence which best practices you can actually adopt. Let’s
go over the three document control systems most commonly used by medical
device companies.
1. PAPER-BASED AND AD HOC DOCUMENT CONTROL SYSTEMS
For decades, medical device manufacturers have relied on paper-based
document control systems. This means folders of documents, stacks of binders,
and rows of filing cabinets.
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 29
Our 2020 State of Medical Device Product Development and Quality
Management Report findings showed that over 50% of medical device
companies still use paper-based or ad hoc systems.
Paper systems are inherently cumbersome. Early on, when your company is
small enough to occupy one room in one office, it seems doable. You can
literally pass a document around a table and get everyone’s signature. What
could be easier?
As your company grows, a system like this quickly becomes harder. As soon
as you involve a third-party vendor or hire remote team members that operate
beyond the vicinity of your office walls, your paper system will start to tear.
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 30
It doesn’t take long for modern companies to introduce some level of digitization.
Rather than pass around a physical document, teams start faxing, printing,
scanning, and emailing. Teams might use cloud services but it tends to be in an
ad hoc manner without system or procedure.
Despite a layer of technological paint, these slightly better systems inherit many
of the same problems exclusively-paper systems have.
It’s as easy to misplace documents and lose track of the most recent version
among a multitude of Google Drive folders as it is among a multitude of physical
folders.
What may be worse, you’re relying on the security of whichever email hosting
tool you and your vendors are using to communicate and transfer confidential
information—a regulated process that must be followed by companies for
compliance.
Eventually, you’ll need a level of traceability that your ad hoc system can’t
implement. You’ll need to access information related to the risk of your device
to correlate it across different pieces of quality data, and you’ll be stuck with
paper—or digital paper—that can do no such thing. Google Drive can help
different team members access the same document, but it won’t prevent users
from working on an outdated version.
Paper systems, due to their inherently ad hoc nature, are limited and not built
to withstand the complexities involved in overseeing the operations of a medical
device.
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 31
2. GENERAL-PURPOSE DOCUMENT CONTROL SYSTEMS
At first glance, general-purpose tools seem like a solution to the problems that
plague document management in paper-based and ad hoc systems.
These tools are designed to help companies manage a variety of quality
processes but, because they’re used across industries, they lack many features
that medical device manufacturers need.
They don’t come with templated SOPs and workflows suited to the medical
device industry, meaning companies must configure all of these details
themselves. Importantly, general-purpose systems don’t integrate the regulatory
requirements that can make or break a medical device manufacturer.
Validation to 21 CFR Part 11 is an arduous effort the first time around, let alone the
repeated efforts that will follow time and time again to ensure compliance with
ever-changing regulatory requirements. Real-time access to reliable quality data
is difficult, if not impossible.
The inefficiencies of these tools make it nearly impossible to demonstrate
closed-loop traceability between your medical device design controls, risk,
post-market activities, and other key process documentation.
General-purpose tools may feel like an upgrade over paper systems, but they
degrade over time. Since they’re not purpose-built for any one specific industry,
they require regular reconfiguration and validation—which means regularly hiring
outside firms to contract this work.
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 32
In effect, you’re always playing catch-up to a system that was never designed to
do what you need it to do. Just when you think you have it right, a new standard
or update to a regulation will emerge, and you’ll again have to redirect resources
for reconfiguration.
3. PURPOSE-BUILT DOCUMENT CONTROL SYSTEMS
Purpose-built document control systems are key differentiators.
The best QMS software solutions are purpose-built for the medical device
industry that enable document control practices to operate at peak performance.
They facilitate the design, development, manufacturing, and distribution of safe
and effective medical devices to end users.
Safety guardrails are built-in throughout purpose-built systems to support
companies with achieving and maintaining compliance.
Your documents, rather than being a tangent to your core processes, can take
a central role in a connected quality ecosystem. With a purpose-built system,
you can track and update documents throughout the lifecycle of the product,
maintain closed-loop traceability, and integrate all the quality processes, design
inputs, and risk data you need.
Greenlight Guru offers the only purpose-built medical device QMS (MDQMS)
solution. The software comes out of the box with advanced document
management workflow capabilities with Part 11 compliant e-signatures, approval
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 33
workflows, revision control, and more, to ensure peak performance amongst
teams working under one roof or those working remote.
Click here for your free demo of Greenlight Guru’s Advanced Document Management Software
Greenlight Guru comes with a validated OQ/PQ process that covers the required
components of Part 11. This is only possible because Greenlight Guru is built on
top of a multi-tenant cloud architecture with medical device professionals in mind.
Every time we release a new version of our software, we put it through a battery
of tests that reflect the same level of comprehensiveness we recommend to our
WWW.GREENLIGHT.GURU
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 34
customers. Updates, enhancements, and new features are automatic due to a
cloud-based technology stack.
Some general-purpose QMS tools may offer document control, but there’s
only one MDQMS that provides closed-loop traceability and enables you to go
beyond creating and storing documents to managing documentation for every
process throughout the product lifecycle.
A purpose-built system becomes your single source of truth that stays up to date
as your company matures. This is important because document control will suffer
unless you can manage it via a system that scales with company growth.

USING DOCUMENT CONTROL TO

IMPROVE CHANGE MANAGEMENT
Good document control makes it easier to keep track of who has access to what,
which version they’re working on, and where the newest version is located.
Once you can better manage changes, you can better collaborate within your
team and with external stakeholders.
Consider an example: Let’s say you’re ordering a manufactured part for your
medical device. When you make this purchase, you always want to have the
newest version of your product specifications available.
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 35
If you’re using paper or a general-purpose document sharing tool, you have to
worry about vendors referencing old versions of documents.
With a general-purpose system, you might share product designs with your
supplier via email. If you update any information, the supplier now has an
outdated version. You might not even remember who has which version, so you
can’t ensure vendors are always working on the most recent versions.
You can tell your team to keep track of constantly-updating documents, but it’s
harder to tell, and expect, vendors to do that. As much as you may have vetted
these partners, they’re working with numerous companies like yours.
We recommend a risk-based approach to qualifying vendors. Outsourced
vendors can save you money, but without due diligence, vendors can also
produce products that don’t meet your standards. This might mean more audits,
product returns, or product rehauls.
Document control is a key part of your ability to qualify vendors.
Without document control, you could end up ordering parts or tooling that
don’t align with current specifications. Your vendor might manufacture parts or
products according to an outdated document that never got updated. That could
translate to thousands of dollars and weeks’ worth of time wasted due to poor
documentation.
A purpose-built QMS and document control system makes this process
easy—almost hands-off. Purpose-built systems provide version control and
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 36
traceability, meaning you can backtrack from newer versions to older versions
to trace changes and archive outdated versions.
Your goal is to create a single source of truth. Your document control system
should tie together change control with one approval and routing process.
It’s possible to build a document ecosystem that involves your team and an
extensive array of partners where no one has to worry about working off
of a document that has become outdated unbeknownst to them.
Check out our Definitive Guide To Change Management For
Medical Devices to learn more.
USING DOCUMENT CONTROL
TO IMPROVE INSPECTION AND
AUDIT OUTCOMES
Audits seem like they’re all about the technicalities, but they’re just as much
about perception. Good document control helps you frame your company and its
processes to auditors.
Imagine this scenario: You’re undergoing an audit when the auditor asks for your
CAPA documentation.
You remember this corrective action clearly: One of your most incisive engineers
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DOCUMENT CONTROL FOR MEDICAL DEVICE COMPANIES PAGE 37
detected a flaw in a device that prevented it from functioning as intended under
certain circumstances. Your team investigated the issue and identified the
corrective action to be taken.
Eventually, your team made you proud: They corrected the flaw and documented
everything, and no patient was harmed along the way.
There’s one problem: Where’s the document that recorded it all?
To the auditor, all that work your team did to correct the flaw is immaterial.
If it wasn’t documented, it didn’t happ