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Simple EHR & ERP Record Retention, Search and Destruction for Healthcare Organizations
Are you at risk? If your healthcare organization has legacy EMR systems up in read-only mode then you may be. Medical record retention requirements demand that certain patient data is stored for over 30 years to meet legal compliance. But operating systems and servers age, and maintaining them for that long may entail access issues, support costs, corruption, or cybersecurity risk.
Not only does archiving medical records from everything from EMR data to ERP data reduce legacy system costs, but it fortifies cybersecurity defenses, and is the best way to help ensure legal compliance with record retention mandates.
Our team of experts extracts the data from your legacy systems, migrating and consolidating it to a relational database. It’s then made accessible in an easy-to-use, efficient browser-based platform for years to come. We muscle through the data extraction so you get legacy data where you need it, when you need it. If you can Google a search term on the Internet, you can access historical patient data in our healthcare data archiving solution with little to no training.
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When comparing data archiving and conversion, there is a general misperception that a data conversion brings over all the patient data. However, due to cost and complexity, only patient demographics and some basic medical data elements — like the last 24 months problems, allergies, medications, immunizations and procedures — are typically converted to a new EHR system.
But what happens to the remaining data? Keeping the legacy system operational in a read-only format poses both financial burdens and technical risks. Sustaining the old system solely for reference purposes creates ongoing costs for hardware maintenance, software licenses, and support services.
A patient data archive includes most, if not all, of the data in its full integrity. This all-inclusive long-term storage and medical data archiving of patient data adheres to state and federal medical record retention regulations for protected health information (PHI).
If you need to store data for long-term retention, archiving is the best option. If you’re unsure to convert or archive, consult with us. We can help you assess your needs and recommend the best process for your data.
Most simply, health data archiving is a solution for storing clinical data. But not all health data archiving solutions are created equal. A robust active archive like HealthData Archiver™ consolidates disparate legacy data sets into centralized storage, helps healthcare organizations comply with record retention and HIPAA requirements, and enables end users to easily access historical records through a user interface or single sign-on from an electronic health record (EHR). This is increasingly important as regulatory guidelines such as the 21st Century Cures Act have expanded the requirements for electronic protected health information (ePHI) data availability, specifically regarding patients’ access to their records.
With many hospitals managing a large number of legacy applications, health data archiving is key to optimized data management as well as reduced cost and risk. By migrating legacy data to an archive, the legacy systems can be decommissioned. This provides cost and security benefits as legacy systems are known for being weak links for cybersecurity attacks and costly in terms of maintenance, infrastructure and labor when left up-and-running in read-only mode.
An electronic health record (EHR) or electronic medical record (EMR) data archive is a secure long-term storage solution that allows ongoing, secure access to legacy medical records. An active archive solution like HealthData ArchiverTM includes rich workflows and integrations that increase productivity for health information management (HIM), clinical, and revenue cycle users. With its open and scalable architecture, it is built to accommodate clinical data from any acute or ambulatory care system, in any format. This serves as an alternative to a costly and complex data conversion from a legacy EHR or EMR to a new one.
There are numerous benefits to having an EHR/EMR data archive. This includes traditional release of information workflows as well as and newer functions like Secure Record Delivery which enables the transmission of an archived patient record to an active EHR endpoint. That said, not all legacy applications and archiving solutions are created equally. When selecting a vendor, make sure they can manage your EHR/EMR data archive project and meet your requirements with proven processes, ability to scale, system expertise, EHR/EMR integrations, and required product functionality.
When archiving patient data to an active archive, it most commonly goes to a secure cloud. For example, HealthData ArchiverTM is a browser-based solution most often deployed as a hosted solution with Harmony Healthcare IT’s private cloud. This is a HITRUST CSF®-certified environment designed expressly for the safeguarding of protected health information. Patient data is encrypted in transit and at rest with all access to the cloud-based storage logged and monitored.
Another way of answering this question is to say the legacy patient data goes wherever it is needed. From a central, consolidated data storage location, role-based access allows clinicians to access historical records at time of care, health information management teams to release records utilizing built-in workflows, and revenue cycle management teams to wind down accounts receivables.
There is not a limit to how much data can be archived. Archives are a smart solution for healthcare organizations of all sizes; and cloud-based storage provides scalability for initial and future data storage needs. While some archives are small, large integrated delivery networks (IDNs) may store data from hundreds of legacy applications amounting to billions of clinical records.
With the average hospital generating about 50 petabytes of data every year, the amount of data compounds quickly. An upgrade to a new application or a merger or acquisition can be major drivers for data and application growth. Archiving can help healthcare provider organizations better manage the large amount of data under their umbrella by reducing the number of in-production applications, while still allowing users to access the records for clinical, release of information, or legal needs.
HIPAA-compliant storage of protected health information (PHI) and employee or business data from legacy software.
The tool you need to develop a strategy and save time and money.
Archiving everything from EMR data to ERP data can greatly benefit your entire healthcare organization.