Accessing Old Data

Everything Old is New Again

Summary
Many Physician groups change IT practice management systems. When transitioning into the new system, one of the major concerns is keeping the data intact and accessible in the old system. Physician groups have had limited options such as continuing to pay maintenance fees on the old system or discarding the data completely.

From The Weston Group's knowledge of healthcare data storage and maintenance, we have been able to offer a third web-based option that is both cost-effective and more efficient in retrieving old data than the current choices. We have proactively contacted clients to inform them of the availability of this service and they have been extremely satisfied with the results.

Solution
When physician groups change to new practice management systems, they do so for a variety of reasons. The groups always have the option of keeping the old system and continuing to pay maintenance fees, but at some point this is not cost-effective. When they want to get rid of that system and reduce their expenses, there is still the nagging problem of accessing the old data. Usually, the physicians and administrators are not prepared to jettison that information as it may be needed for future financial or clinical reasons.

Weston has worked with a number of medical groups to extract data from their old systems by creating a central repository accessible through the Internet. By creating a web-based solution, the need for training or advanced knowledge of a system is unnecessary. The system is as simple to access as doing a Google search. Weston has utilized a number of tools and techniques which have been developed over time to create better efficiencies. The data is extracted to a central repository and then moved to an internal web-based system that allows for search and retrieval of this data.

Benefit
The ROI generally occurs over a two to three year period after maintenance fees, system maintenance and training are all factored into the equation. The first obvious benefit to a web-based system is the elimination of the maintenance fees for the old practice management systems. A second component of cost savings is the removal of maintenance on the old system. These services can include application maintenance as well as maintenance on the servers and desktop machines to allow access to the system.

Finally, when a person needs information, they must be able to navigate the old system. As personnel changes in the organization occur, knowledge of accessing antiquated systems diminishes. Further training and expense would be incurred in order to access the old data. With development of this new web-based search mechanism, there is virtually no learning curve as it operates just like a Google search.

An additional feature to a web-based system is that the old data can be searched and presented in new configurations that the old system was incapable of performing. As a result, the data actually becomes more useful than it was prior to the transition to a new system.

Contact us to learn more about establishing a web-based system for accessing old data.