Some medical practices and hospital systems are not satisfied with their existing EHR software system as it may lack functionality, is difficult to use, and have issues with the software vendor. A switch to a new software system has its challenges as it takes the opportunity cost of time, money, and effort. The IT staff also needs to make sure that all the previous data is migrated seamlessly without any errors into the new Electronic Medical Records (EMR) software system. Moving entire health and patient data is not a small task and the hospital IT department must make an informed decision and should know that the new form of storage will be of some benefit to the healthcare organization shortly. Cloud migration is when data is moved from on-site storage into the cloud, or from one cloud-based platform to another.
Data Migration Planning
Moving data or data migration requires planning ahead of time and cannot be moved in a snap of a moment due to the following three reasons;
- Systems are not designed and built to move such a large amount of data to another system at once because it has hardware and network limitations.
- During the transition, data will not be available and accessible to healthcare providers and other stakeholders involved in the healthcare process.
- There is a greater risk of data loss when practices leave data at a risky transition position.
Consideration before undertaking a cloud data migration in the healthcare industry
Healthcare organizations need to consider the following points before leaping over to data migration to ensure that the healthcare data migration data is a success.
- You must ask your new software vendor about the features and benefits offered by the EHR software system. The selected vendor should be able to migrate your data without any glitches. You can request a live demo with your vendor to see how they would migrate the data into the new software system.
- Data security is another important consideration that cannot be ruled out as moving data to a new cloud service provider may need network security to be reconfigured or reworked. This will avoid any security gaps when data is being migrated.
- When the data is being transmitted the data must be accessible so the provider’s productivity is not affected and patient safety levels are maintained. Before the migration process scaling and reconfiguration of applications must be completed.
How does healthcare data migration add value?
Seamless healthcare data migration adds value by continuously evolving healthcare with data analytics. Successful data migration makes sure that accurate, timely, and high-quality medical data is available to healthcare providers and hospital systems to enhance the patient care process. The clinically relevant healthcare data availability helps patient outcomes to improve to offer supreme medical care. When deciding on data migration it is advised that medical set-ups have prior planning to prepare a smooth transition of healthcare data to cloud storage or another software system. This data is valuable to make the most informed decisions by physicians and cannot be put at stake in any case.
