Medical practices migrating off of legacy practice management software may be at risk. That old system contains individually-identifiable protected health information (PHI) that, according to state and federal mandates, must be secured for 7-10 years at a minimum. Maintaining a system and its architecture for that long may entail support costs and corruption issues with an aging operating system and server. Securely Archiving PHI A product called Health Data Archiver securely stores decades-worth of data from retired healthcare application or from scanned paper charts. First, the full practice management database — not just demographics or balance forward financials — is extracted. Next, copies of the any old paper charts are optionally scanned. Finally, all data and images are indexed and made searchable by patient identifier, name, social security number and data source. The Health Data Archival Process When to Archive When replacing an existing billing or EHR system with a new one When joining a hospital group and transitioning to their system When shutting down a practice due to relocation or retirement Why to Archive To comply with state and federal medical record retention guidelines that safeguard PHI To efficiently respond to patient, payer or legal inquiries without the need to boot-up and login to a legacy system To eliminate the support costs and risks of aging software, operating systems and servers To recoup valuable paper chart storage space in your office Benefits of Archiving Ensuring data integrity Providing data accessibility Reducing system maintenance and paper storage costs Complying with state and federal medical record retention mandates To Learn More About Health Data Archiving Contact Harmony Healthcare IT at 800-781-1044.