During the sales process, we’re often asked what makes Harmony Healthcare IT different from other clinical archiving vendors. The answer comes pretty easily: it’s because we’re not a company driven by what to get done as much as we’re driven by why to do it in the first place. When you believe passionately in your “why” and can be innovative with the “how” like we have been . . . then the “what” of product features flows pretty naturally. Our Mission Our mission is to preserve vital information so that lives may be improved. At one level, our mission speaks to the lives of the providers and staff who utilize our products. We improve their lives by making information they need to do their job readily accessible – whether that’s for clinical treatment or eDiscovery. At another level, we’re improving the lives of patients. We do this by preserving their full patient narrative with 100% accuracy as it was presented to us from the legacy system we’re decommissioning. By making this historical data readily available to caregivers, we’re helping to support fully-informed, proper treatment decisions. This is especially important in the cases of mental health and oncology, when having a comprehensive context of care history could make a world of difference. There are also some specific points about our people, our product and our process that further differentiate us from all other vendors in the industry. Our People We are data experts. We say right on our home page that we “get” data – both figuratively and literally. With a deep bench of senior-level technical resources, we are able to conceptualize data mining, mapping and archiving strategies that make sense for today’s healthcare landscape. That might mean something as simplistic as single-sign-on access to archived information form within the active hospital information system. It might mean adding a layer of data lake storage for raw data elements to be used in future analytics projects. Or, it might manifest as continuity of care document (CCD) delivery of key historical clinical packets that are delivered to the provider at time of care in his active electronic medical record system. When I tout that we’re experts, I’m also saying that it is our people doing the work. We literally “get” the data from a variety of applications and platforms ourselves versus outsourcing extractions overseas or asking the client to do it to our specification. We are healthcare experts. Our leadership team is comprised of individuals whose careers have been committed to working with clinical and financial data and software product development in both acute and ambulatory care settings. Since the organization’s inception, we have focused on the healthcare market exclusively, honing our specialization as each year goes by and staying up to date on data availability strategies, interoperability and other integration initiatives. From our industry-connected senior management team to our certified project managers to our friendly customer service analysts; the team is responsive, results-oriented and committed to being experts with health data management every step of the way. Our Product Since the genesis of our HealthData Archiver® product, we have successfully built a data management platform that leads the industry in innovation, making data highly available to those who need it for treatment and eDiscovery. HealthData Archiver® is a light-weight application that is database and vendor-neutral. It requires access only to the Internet and to a portable document format (PDF) viewer to be used. All data sources within HealthData Archiver® can be accessed from a single screen. Minimal end-user training is required. We designed HealthData Archiver® this way – to be intuitive – so that historical records could be accessed “simply” over time as staff comes and goes during the retention period of a medical record (which can be upwards of 25 years). Our intent was not to re-create a complicated, menu-driven, full production system. Our intent was to create a simple viewer that allows costly full-production legacy systems to be retired and historical records made available in a variety of ways to those who need it. Our Process As a LEAN organization, the Harmony Healthcare IT team has archived millions of patient records and terabytes of data in a very systematic way, constantly looking for ways to reduce waste or improve process. We efficiently execute while providing scalable solutions that will handle future growth as new legacy data sources are added to the healthcare enterprise archive. We employ certified project managers who have built repeatable processes and templates for data archival. Our technicians are constantly building out new tools and scripts to reduce processing time and improve accuracy for data transformation. We follow an agile software development methodology so that new product features or enhancements to the user interface can be brought to market quickly. Process is what makes us go, and, we are committed to always improving it. So, if you’re a stakeholder at a hospital or health system looking for a clinical archiving vendor, take a look at Harmony Healthcare IT, the makers of HealthData Archiver®. As you work with us, you’ll see that the “why” of what we do drives us each day not only to be on time and on budget with managing your health data, but, also to be accurate and secure. Put our people, our product and our process to work for you. Ultimately, it will improve your daily work life. More importantly, it could also improve or save the life of a patient. Tom Liddell is the CEO and Managing Partner of Harmony Healthcare IT. He brings 30+ years of health IT experience from a variety of companies focusing on clinical software development, health information exchange and diagnostic laboratory and blood banking services. Liddell is bending the cost curve for health systems, hospitals and practices daily by helping them with data extraction, migration, retention, interoperability and analytics. Harmony Healthcare IT, the makers of HealthData Archiver®, preserves vital information from legacy patient and employee systems. The company primarily helps health systems to decommission replaced HIS, EHR, LIS and practice management systems as well as general accounting and HR/Payroll systems. The benefits include a reduction in technical risk, IT labor and maintenance costs. Editor’s Note: This blog contains content from an earlier post from July 25th, 2016.