What is a Legacy System in Healthcare?

Summary

There is talk about new go-forward systems in healthcare. These new systems and applications offer tremendous potential, but what about the current and legacy systems? With more than three quarters of hospitals and health systems running legacy systems, what are the issues and opportunities ahead for digital transformation?

All about legacy systems in healthcare - what to know

Global spending on digital transformation in healthcare surpassed $1.3 trillion and is growing at a rate of over 10 percent year-over-year. Digital transformation refers to more than just the latest technology and systems, but is a holistic, organizational shift that includes health system agility that improves operations and patient experience while reducing costs. Healthcare providers of all sizes are looking at their stable of current and legacy systems to decide what stays and what needs to go.

What is a legacy system in healthcare?

Legacy systems refer to outdated software or technology still in operation. Currently, legacy systems are in use at 76 percent of hospitals and health systems, with legacy footprints comprising up to 20 percent of all technology assets. There are many reasons why these systems are still in use, from record retention rules to difficulties or high costs associated with integrating with newer systems.

Bottom line: Legacy systems may not be equipped to keep up with the current or future technology agility needed in healthcare organizations.

What are examples of legacy systems being used in healthcare?

Legacy systems are found in all departments across the entire healthcare continuum. They can include older electronic health record (EHR) systems, payment and administrative platforms, medical devices, and communication networks. As systems get upgraded or replaced, some older systems are left running, even if their best “racing days” are in the past.

Digital transformation is more than a buzzword… it is a shift to fundamentally change how things are done.

In a Deloitte study, 92 percent of healthcare professionals and institutes reported better consumer satisfaction and engagement as the top outcomes they want to achieve from digital transformation. Across all industries, creating a connected user experience is a priority that is causing organizational headaches with 55 percent of organizations reporting they find it difficult to integrate user experiences.

There are challenges and issues with legacy systems in healthcare.

New applications and systems have a different set of requirements than older systems that were built with other priorities in mind. We have identified four main challenges that healthcare teams face with legacy systems.

  • Interoperability is a top priority for the entire healthcare ecosystem with the seamless integration of information between all healthcare entities as the goal. Older systems were not designed with this in mind and can create problems. A report found that the average organization (from all industries) uses 976 unique applications, and that many of those are legacy applications.
  • Security issues. Healthcare is a leading target for cyber attacks and legacy technology is reported as the third-biggest security challenge (after ransomware and phishing) facing healthcare cybersecurity programs.
  • Maintenance costs. Cost containment is a top priority in healthcare. Maintenance alone on legacy applications can lead to a 15 percent annual budget increase.
  • Lack of compliance. Regulatory guidelines continue to increase, and sometimes legacy systems cannot meet the expanding requirements. Besides the health organization’s internal policies, there are federal, state, HIPAA and the 21st Century Cures Act rules that must be followed.

A checklist of the six reasons to know it is time to modernize your legacy systems.

If you can check any (or some) of these areas below, it may be time to prioritize modernizing your legacy IT systems and applications.

  1. __ Poor Performance. Workflow bottlenecks, slowdowns, system crashes, lack of functionality and inability to handle increased workloads. Not able to scale.
  2. __Short on Security/Compliance. Frequent breaches and non-compliance with security standards
  3. __Higher Costs. Higher maintenance costs, low return on investment compared to newer solutions as well as a high cost of total ownership.
  4. __Poor user experience. is regularly reported, and users find the system inefficient.
  5. __Lack of system Integration. Poor interoperability with other systems.
  6. __Scarcity of vendor support. end of life announcements and infrequent or end of updates.

Tips for managing legacy systems (how to prepare for modernization)

It may be an easy yes that there are legacy systems within an organization that could be better served with newer, more robust systems. In a study, 87 percent of IT decision-makers agreed that their organizations need to modernize critical applications for success. That said, it is not that easy to conduct an immediate overhaul. This is where strategy and planning play a critical role. There can be complicated infrastructure issues that require time and budget investments, as well as compliance and data migration issues to think through.

The first and most crucial step is to develop a strategic roadmap for system and application modernization. This involves upfront assessment and planning to evaluate the current systems and to create objectives for the modernization initiatives. This is the point where it is vital to gain stakeholder buy-in and executive support before moving forward with any modernization strategies. As the plan comes together for which systems to replace, make sure there is a path forward to migrate data to continue to meet compliance and security requirements.

Pros and cons of replacing legacy systems in healthcare.

Your plans to modernize your healthcare environment may be met with some resistance to change. Here are a few areas to think about as your create and implement your modernization plans.

Modernization Pros – There are reasons to get excited about modernizing the systems and applications with an organization including: improved efficiency, sophisticated security features, being prepared for emerging technologies and other growth.

Modernization Cons – Changing systems can sometimes lead to temporary challenges. There are cases where the current systems are cost-effective if they are functioning well. The current network of applications and systems may be compatible and currently not causing too many issues. With these scenarios, it likely is only a matter of time before action needs to be taken.

Harmony Healthcare IT can help your team prioritize which legacy systems and applications to keep or rationalize in the near and long-term.

Equally as important, we support the secure migration of legacy data from retired systems to ensure record retention guidelines are met.

When there are decisions to sideline applications and decommission data silos, HealthData Platform™ offers storage, workflows, transactions and interoperability to securely manage protected health information.

Our team offers our in-depth experience and record of success in archiving some of the healthcare industry’s largest and most complex clinical and software systems. Our achievements are noted in the KLAS Data Archiving 2024 Report where we received all A’s in the six customer experience pillars of culture, loyalty, operations, product, relationship and value.

We take each project as an opportunity to earn an A.

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Oct 15 2024

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