Altera & Veradigm (formerly Allscripts) EHR Data Migration & Archiving

Veradigm (formerly Allscripts Healthcare Solutions) rounds out the top 5 of the more than 500 ambulatory EHR vendors in the healthcare market. In 2022, Allscripts sold its hospital and large physician practice business segment that included Sunrise, Paragon, TouchWorks, Opal and dbMotion solutions to N. Harris Computer Corporation, which rebranded them under its Altera Digital Health business unit. The company rebranded with the solutions it kept and now is called Veradigm.

With industry consolidation and shifting, users will decide which EHRs they need to keep or if they will transition to a new system. With either scenario, Harmony Healthcare IT can help manage legacy data.

Former Allscripts Solutions Require Agility with Legacy Data

The legacy Allscripts product offering includes an array of solutions including clinical EHRs, financial/operations, patient engagement, analytics, and technical services. Healthcare providers who need to move legacy data to or from a Veradigm solution need a vendor that can support the extraction, migration, conversion, and integration required.

Current Veradigm solutions include:

  • Allscripts PM
  • Enterprise Resource Planning
  • FollowMyHealth
  • Melissa Data
  • Opargo
  • Payerpath
  • Practice Fusion
  • Professional EHR
  • Allscripts RCMS
  • Veradigm

Current Altera solutions include:

  • Sunrise Clinical Manager (SCM)
  • Sunrise Financial Manager (SFM)
  • Sunrise Community Care
  • Paragon
  • TouchWorks EHR
  • Care Director
  • Opal
  • dbMotion

Talk to the Experts

Focused exclusively on healthcare, Harmony Healthcare IT is an award-winning data management firm with a proven ability to extract, migrate and archive data with 100% integrity.

Allscripts Migration Services

The Harmony Healthcare IT team brings solid experience with 100+ Allscripts projects to date.

We have an established, standard, repeatable process for data extraction, transformation, and load from a source legacy system to a target go-forward system or archive.

We are deeply familiar with Sunrise Clinical Manager, Paragon, TouchWorks, and the rest of Allscripts’ former solutions. We also have answers to EHR-specific questions, such as: How will we continue to access TouchWorks’ ChartViewer?

Our legacy data management solutions support data migration to and from the former Allscripts solutions and work with server or cloud-based applications.

 

What Preparations Need to be Done for an Allscripts Migration?

Data migration, the process of moving data from one system to another, can be a daunting task. Prerequisites for a successful data migration help ensure the project meets the organization’s overall strategy and goals. Big picture first steps include:

  1. Know your data. Understand where it is located, what type of data there is, what formats are used, etc. Document an inventory (here’s a template) to identify and help prioritize which data needs to converted to a new EHR vs migrated to an archive.
  2. Choose a vendor partner with the experience to fully meet your legacy data management needs. This RFP template provides a framework to support that decision.
  3. Identify the Internal Project Team that often includes Project Sponsor, Project Manager, IT Systems Analyst and Subject Matter Experts.
  4. Work with your organization’s Data Governance Team (usually IT, HIM, Finance, Clinical, Operations, Legal, Audit & Compliance) to ensure holistic legacy migration and decommissioning decisions are made.

Our Deep Experience with Allscripts Products Guides Seamless Migrations

Working on more than one hundred Allscripts migrations puts you in good hands with a team that walks the talk. The Harmony Healthcare IT platform includes:

Discrete Data. The Harmony Healthcare IT methodology for legacy data migration into HealthData Archiver™ is to bring any source system data in discretely if that is how it’s available. This allows for advanced search, sorting, filtering, reporting and analytics.

Images and PDFs. These can be migrated to the new system. PDFs can be indexed through optical character recognition and included in advanced search. HealthData Archiver™ includes a graphical user interface for users as well as rich workflows for clinicians, HIM professionals and accounts receivable collectors.

Organized Data Structures. Data is organized by domain, source and type and allows for role-based security access and auditing.

Scalable Solution. The solution is scalable, easily accommodating new data sources over time. Specialized data such as perinatal fetal monitoring strips are accommodated in the solution. HealthData Archiver™ is built to provide a searchable fetal monitoring strip directory organized by patient. And, to connect the strips to the rest of the medical record.

Single Sign-On (SSO). Integrated sign on functionality to the go-forward EHR makes for a secure, cost-effective, long-term legacy data management strategy. With Single Sign-On, users seamlessly authenticate, in patient-context, from most major EHR brands (e.g., Epic, Oracle Cerner, Veradigm, and athenahealth) to HealthData Archiver™. Several other standards are supported.

A Checklist for Allscripts Data Migration Success

The steps below are ideally suited for the decommissioning of healthcare applications where both a migration and archival will occur.

  1. Project Planning & Kick Off. The first step involves building a project plan that aligns milestones with work with the project lifecycle. Resources are allocated to meet defined timeline and budget. An initial kick-off call includes confirmation on import specifications for target go-forward system, timeline and cutover strategy.
  2. Access. The Harmony Healthcare IT team works closely with client resources as system access is critical to meeting project milestones. Network and/or software log in credentials may be issued if data is not provided in pre-defined format.
  3. Requirements. Meeting to identify, define and prioritize data elements and images required. Stakeholders will define additional data customizations from within the source system that must be replicated in the target system.
  4. Extraction of Data. If data is not provided by client or third-party, the  Harmony Healthcare IT teams team will begin extracting data, readying it for transformation and load. Throughout the extraction process, quality and accuracy is ensured with various checksums and data counts performed against the source location.
  5. Data Integration. Data is mapped to specifications, reviewed and analyzed. Data structure is backwards engineered and then modeled to meet migration requirements. Data cleansing rules are applied and unique value listing is provided to begin translation table build.
  6. Data Validation. Once data is loaded, testing and validation begins with accuracy checks conducted by resources from client and Harmony Healthcare IT teams. Internal quality analysis is performed against the source system and sample data is delivered to the target system for ingestion engine and QA environment testing.
  7. Deployment. Data is ready to be deployed to its target system (e.g., the target EHR or HealthData Archiver™, or both.)
  8. Quality Checkpoints & Project Closure. There generally are three checkpoints throughout each migration project to assess if there are any modifications needed about the project, process or product. Feedback is used to improve the project and support the company’s efforts of continuous improvement.

100+ Allscripts Completed Projects Provides an Experienced Partner

The Harmony Healthcare IT team brings solid experience with 100+ Allscripts projects to date. We are deeply familiar with Sunrise Clinical Manager, Paragon, TouchWorks, and the rest of Allscripts’ former solutions. Our legacy data management solutions support data migration to and from the former Allscripts solutions.

In most cases, key clinical data is converted to the new go-forward system. We help with that data conversion and then manage the rest of the data in HealthData PlatformTM.

We support server or cloud-based applications.

We are familiar with the specific questions from Allscripts users such as: How will they continue to access TouchWorks’ ChartViewer?

Data Agility Supports Long Term Access Wherever, Whenever Needed

With the 21st Century Cures Act adding enforceable rules to guide interoperability, integration is as important as ever. Harmony Healthcare IT developers work collaboratively with APIs of leading health IT vendors to ensure the secure exchange or accessibility to data within the healthcare ecosystem.

Single Sign-On. An important feature in the active archive ensures users maintain immediate access to legacy data. With Single Sign-On, users seamlessly authenticate, in patient-context, from most major EMR brands (e.g., Epic®, Cerner®, Veradigm®, Allscripts® and athenahealth®) to HealthData Archiver®. Oauth/OpenID, Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML 2.0) and other standards are supported.

Single Sign-On Brochure

Download

Key Steps for Starting an Active Archive Project

  1. Document an archiving strategy to identify and prioritize which systems need to be decommissioned with data migrated to an archive.

  2. Choose an archive partner with the experience to fully meet your legacy data management needs. This RFP template provides a framework to support that decision.

Vital Considerations about Legacy Applications

Legacy Data Decision Drivers: Security and Cost Savings

A CIO survey showed top drivers for data archiving are reported as security and cost savings. With 94 percent of organizations with legacy applications in current operations, it is not surprising that more than three quarters (77 percent) of CIOs surveyed list application rationalization as a medium to high priority.

View Infographic

Our team has worked with more than 550 unique clinical, financial, and administrative software brands.

We are a trusted resource you can count on for consulting through implementation. Key benefits with legacy data management include security, cost savings as well as data consolidation and compliance with 21st Century Cures Act.

Whatever system you are planning a move to or from, we can help.

Case Studies

Columbus Regional Healthcare System

Active Archiving as a Revenue Cycle Solution after a System Migration

Learn More
Columbus regional case study

Academic Medical Center

Data Harmonization Achieved by Large Academic Medical Center

Learn More
image for case study by large academic medical center for data harmonization

Regional Health System Continues A/R Wind Down and Consolidates Legacy EHRs

Do you have legacy data to manage? Reach out.

We can help iron out your unique needs and make sure you are well positioned for the future.

Allscripts EHR Migration and Archiving FAQs