Who doesn’t love sunsets? Data Centers across the country are packed with old, legacy systems that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to maintain. Many avoid sunsetting because they’re just unsure what to do with the data. We call it eating an elephant, one bite at a time. First it helps to determine What, When, and Where; the three W’s of archiving legacy systems.
1) What do you want to retain? One of the easiest questions to ask, but the most difficult to answer. The most common answer from stakeholders is “all of it”; which isn’t practical. Whether discrete or image, clinical or business office, asking these three questions can help; is the data: Clinically relevant? Legally required? Business relevant?
2) When to start the extraction and conversion? This question is two part; when to start the extracts, pre or post conversion to the new system. In addition, what date range will be extracted? Evaluating historical relevance can be cause for pause. Hospitals often end up not choosing a time frame of extraction because it is difficult to determine.
3) Where do you want to store data? We find most sites will store clinical data in an existing scanning/archiving system via a COLD feed. There might be data you don’t want in your active archiving system but rather in a separate vendor neutral archive (VNA). HCI can provide a VNA should you want separate storage.
Whether you want discrete or image retention, The HCI Solution will walk you through the three W’s of archiving legacy systems and you can watch the beauty of a sunset with an experienced partner. We’ve helped many sites sunset their legacy systems, saving them millions.
To learn about The HCI Solution’s Archiving & Data Conversion services CLICK HERE.
