EMR Data migration or EHR Data migration is the process of transferring data from an existing infrastructure to a new one. This is an integral part of a successful EHR Go-Live. An EHR typically contains the following patient information: name, contact information, insurance information, immunization history and dates, medical history, past, and current medical diagnosis, past and current prescription medications, results of laboratory testing, allergies, CT, MRI, and other radiographic images.
- What is legacy data and why should we migrate legacy healthcare data?
- How to do EMR data migration to a new EMR system?
- What are the challenges of EHR data migration to a new system?
- 5 benefits of legacy data migration.
What is legacy data and why should we migrate legacy healthcare data?
Retired EHR/EMRs become legacy systems if they are still used to extract data for information release and continuity of care. Legacy data can be any information not transferred to the new platform such as Medical records, Dental records, Surgical records, Behavioral data (for example, a patient’s diet), and Biometrics. Legacy systems contain valuable patient data that the clinical staff relies on every day to understand the patients’ history. Maintaining and securing the rapidly growing volume of healthcare data, and putting it to good use, is proving a costly and complex challenge for healthcare providers of all sizes.
Many healthcare facilities retain their data for a specific amount of time, as it helps to meet compliance requirements, by providing historical information to providers and patients whenever required. This process may sound simple but is instead hidden under several layers of necessary requirements. It’s not just the mandated requirements that should make your facility consider retaining your data, but growth opportunities as well. Data is precious and what you do with it, can make a huge difference to your facility’s growth.
Why should we migrate legacy healthcare data
Some practices choose to migrate their data for a variety of reasons. These include EHR vendor dissatisfaction, hospital acquisitions, vendor certification for meaningful use, or moving away from a vendor that could not certify. In some cases, the organization has decided to upgrade its servers or storage devices, or the ambulatory clinic needs a more robust system due to the increasing complexity of patient care or backup maintenance, or due to the necessity for remote working support.
In the era of Big Data and analytics, it’s increasingly common to see EHR data migrations to vendors or analytics platforms with superior data management and analysis services. As of 2022, over 86% of office-based physicians had adopted EHRs. This rush in utilization has led to improved service offerings by vendors, spurring more movement of practice data. An EHR data migration is a great time to establish a healthier vendor relationship, clean up data, and review policies for access, utility, and backups.
Option of Using an Archival System
Archiving legacy data on a platform that houses previous healthcare records and reports solves the biggest issues with legacy systems in healthcare. Since archival data is often cloud-based, it is secure and cost-saving.
How to do EMR data migration to a new EMR system?
Facilities must take several steps to prepare for the migration of EMR data. The first is to go through a research process with your IT department to set the parameters for your data migration. Factors to consider here are:
- How much patient data can be converted?
- What percentage of data requires manual encoding and scanning? What is the estimated time for the entire EHR data migration process?
- Next, review current patient records to ensure an efficient data migration process. Accounts do not need to be transferred from deceased or inactive patients. Also, you should check for duplicate accounts. A common example is a patient who has one EHR with her maiden name and one EHR with her married name.
The vendor you pick out to partner with in your data migration challenge makes all of the difference. First and foremost, your EHR supplier should perform inside the mandates of affected person privacy laws (HIPAA). Experience counts as well. Look for an EHR supplier who has been in the enterprise for decades and has helped migrate data from a couple of working systems.
Additionally, it is important to select a vendor that provides customizable workflow solutions. Be positive your EHR supplier helps all workflows and those you need to add, such as billing, pharmacy, physicians, and schedule. You additionally need to carve out time for workforce education on the brand-new EHRs.
What are the challenges of EHR data migration to a new system?
- Lost revenue from missed charges
- Inaccessible discrete data
- Unique manual abstraction for newly acquired practices
- Health maintenance scanned documents from legacy EMR
5 benefits of legacy data migration
Cost Control – Legacy systems are like older vehicles that shut down– the more you use them, the higher the maintenance costs. By migrating your legacy systems, you can reduce maintenance costs by paying only for what you need.
Data Security– Older applications can be vulnerable to data loss, data theft, or virus attacks. Also, in the event of data loss, the process of backing up the data or restoring the data is usually not maintained. However, legacy migration overcomes this challenge by providing data security and upgrading to the next level.
Increase Performance – Legacy applications can become very slow. Storing data locally causes legacy applications to load very slowly, leading to data loss. Legacy Migration improves data loading performance by integrating with the cloud, making data accessible anytime, anywhere.
Improve Compatibility – Legacy applications are incompatible while new advanced services and technologies are connected. Given the importance of mobile usability and internet usage, it is more important to easily scale the solution on mobile. Legacy migration supports possible replacements and improves system scalability and compatibility.
Technology Upgrades – Traditional systems always require downtime to update themselves, whereas traditional migrations can instantly update new versions of your solution.
Legacy migration is the perfect solution when you find your legacy system is inefficient, you need to spend more on maintenance, and your employees experience poor performance with old systems. Without the right plan in place for legacy data migration, it often turns into a nightmare of challenges and high costs for companies. Triyam has knowledge, experience, and expertise in migrating legacy systems as well as legacy software solutions. If you are looking for a reliable legacy migration partner reach us at info@triyam.com.