By Laurie Seall, VP Operations, Harmony Healthcare IT
LinkedIn: Laurie Seall
LinkedIn: Harmony Healthcare IT
Data that sits in a legacy system is at risk of becoming inaccessible. As applications and servers age, they become more vulnerable to cyberattacks and downtime. As the need for data agility and efficiency continues to evolve, it is important to do some cleanup work that will pay off for years to come.
If your organization has accumulated a collection of out-of-production software applications, it is time to cut the clutter and streamline. Think of it as “seasonal cleaning” for your patient, employee, and business data. With healthcare providers operating upwards of 30-40+ legacy systems, there is room for tidying up the legacy footprint to move forward more efficiently, securely and with greater ease to meet interoperability requirements. Deploying an active archive can help.
Here are four action steps to help you get moving on your data clean up.
1. Do some pre-work – First, gather and document information across all areas of your organization.
- Retention Schedules — Review and understand applicable state laws pertaining to record retention. Familiarize yourself with your record retention and destruction policies, documenting any requirements for which an archiving solution may need to comply.
- System Inventory – Identify out-of-production clinical, financial, and business systems in both ambulatory and acute care settings that are storing records. Document details such as how the information is stored, where the data is located, how long it must be retained, and the associated risks.
- Financial Forecast – Estimate maintenance costs, hardware costs, labor burden and potential compliance penalties for each system in the inventory. This step will inform your budget and return on investment for an archiving project.
- System Prioritization – Consider which legacy applications are most urgent to decommission based on contract renewals, account receivables wind-down schedules, potential system failure or security risks, new application go-live dates, and data conversion and abstraction plans.
2. Draft (or dust off) your lifecycle data management strategy – Once you’ve gathered the information above, develop a strategy document that will serve as a roadmap for the legacy data management projects. Key areas to include in the document are:
- Project Charter – Clearly state the goals of the project (i.e., to reduce risk, cut cost, streamline workflow, comply with retention mandates).
- Stakeholders – Identify those impacted by the secure long-term archival of legacy records (i.e., HIM, legal, IT, finance, clinicians, etc.) to define their key requirements for a solution.
- Findings – Summarize the information gathered from the retention policy, system inventory, financial forecast and system prioritization documents so the data governance team understands the scope of the problem, time sensitivity, risk, and associated costs over time.
- Options – Review and document common options for decommissioning legacy systems and storing the data that resided in them. Include the cost, hosting options, level-of-effort, and functionality offered for each storage option.
- Recommendations – Identify the best path forward to decommission out-of-production software as well as the consolidation, security, accessibility, and interoperability of legacy data stores.
3. Assemble the right team – Gathering stakeholder consensus is a way to get started and execute on a plan to avoid postponement.
Key internal stakeholders to consider recruiting to the governance team may include an Executive Sponsor, Project Manager, HIM Director, Technical Resource and data source Subject Matter Experts. Take the time to research and interview vendor partners who might help to execute your legacy data management plan.
4. Plan ahead – Successful lifecycle data management takes a smart plan, the right tools, and a commitment to best practices to assure the right data is secured and available for the retention period. Consider what may be in store for the organization in the future and ensure that your archive solution and vendor can scale with you.
Getting all your ducks in a row now is a smart step to make sure there is a budget available in the coming fiscal year for your legacy data management projects. There are numerous benefits to an active archive, including: consolidated data, decreased costs, ensuring compliance, increased security, enhanced efficiency and simplified reporting. When thinking about health data interoperability requirements, data agility and integration becomes even more important.
Get ready to tackle some data clean up now. Data archiving and management solutions can help preserve vital information, strengthen healthcare delivery and streamline application portfolios.