When you’re ready to implement a legacy data archiving solution, you’ll want to find the right vendor with the right product. Comparing products, apples-to-apples, can be challenging. Over many years of demoing HealthData Archiver®, the team at Harmony Healthcare IT has distilled down a list of features and functions that matter most to healthcare provider organizations. From workflow considerations to comprehensive capabilities, here are ten areas to address — along with questions to ask each vendor — so you can compare products effectively. Access to Records: What are the options for how users access the archive of historical records? Can they use various devices? Browsers? Can the solution store a variety of record types (patient, employee and business records) from numerous data sources and data domains? EHR Integration/Single Sign-On: Does the product support Single Sign-On (SSO) from within our existing EHR? If so, what standards are used? What logic and/or patient matching is used to keep the patient in-context? What is the workflow? Privacy and Security: Is the solution HIPAA-compliant? What audit capabilities are built in? Do you employ a full-time Privacy & Security Officer? What certifications (i.e., HITRUST) does the vendor organization hold? What training is required of the vendor employees who will handle our data? HIM Workflows: How will the archive address the day-to-day needs of our Health Information Management (HIM) team? Release of information? Records management? Batch printing/exporting of records for audits? Records Purging: Do you offer an option for purging that aligns with my record retention and destruction policies? How is that functionality administrated? Controlled? Tracked? Audited? What sort of purge parameters exist? eDiscovery/Search: How responsive is the archive in delivering search results? Does the system allow for advanced search and filtering of discrete data elements? What sort of reporting and querying is available? Data Sources/Views: How is the data presented in the archive? Is the product intuitive and easy-to-use? Can you easily access data from multiple sources and/or domains? Transaction Posting: Does the product allow us to post against outstanding accounts receivable? How does that work? What is the workflow? Hosting: What are your options for hosting versus an on-premise deployment? If the product is hosted, where is the data center? Is the data colocated? Are there geo-redundancies? Is there fiber optic connectivity? Comprehensive Capabilities: Some solutions will excel in specific functions but fall short in others. Does this product have a proven track record of archiving in all functional areas, enterprise-wide? Can it scale to accommodate our perceived archiving needs into the future? Is it backed by a strong and trustworthy management team? At Harmony Healthcare IT, we’ve worked hard to make sure we can provide everything on this list and more. Ready to evaluate potential legacy data archiving solutions? Make sure HealthData Archiver® is on your list. Learn more about HealthData Archiver® here and contact us.