Critical Factors to Consider When Selecting a Data Archival Solution for Medical Records

Author : Triyam Inc | Published On : 25 Apr 2024

Moving inactive data to a different storage device for long-term retention is known as data archiving. A data archive typically has searchable indexes that make it simple to find and retrieve information. Kept in inexpensive storage tiers, it lowers the amount used and the price of primary storage. Organizations typically store older data needed for compliance or future reference.

The procedure begins with developing a data archiving plan. In this step, businesses can inventory their data and discern which data should be archived. There are numerous data archiving options available, each with a unique set of features. Some techniques render archive data read-only in order to prevent change. Other approaches, however, allow for both writes and reads.

Data Archiving Solution with Triyam’s Data Archival Platform- Fovea

Fovea Stores Historical Patient Data In A Vendor Neutral Format. Providers Can Search For A Patient And View Or Download Historical Medical Data. Continuity Of Care For The Patients Is Ensured. Release Of Information Is Made Easy With Just A Few Clicks.
Fovea is a web-based, feature-rich archival application and can be hosted on-premise or on Cloud.
Fovea EHR Archive is a multi-tenant, secure SaaS application that archives data from legacy EHR, EMR, ERP, business, financial, and billing systems, amongst others. The product can be hosted in-house (on-premise) or in the cloud with Microsoft Azure. Fovea is HIPAA-attested and SOC2-certified.
Fovea has a multi-tenant architecture capable of future expansion to support additional data and provides users the ability to write custom reports and run business analytics. The product is a certified innovative and intuitive platform.
Fovea EHR Archive is the Best in KLAS Winner solution in Data Archiving (2021, 2022)
Fovea can archive across any governmental institution and healthcare specialty. In healthcare, data can be archived from acute care, EHRs, ambulatory systems, home health, long-term care, nursing homes, senior living, hospice, surgical centers, behavioral systems, and many others.
In addition to clinical data, data from patient financial and billing systems can also be archived into Fovea.

Healthcare data archiving solutions are applications intended to hold data from other systems for long-term preservation and retrieval in order to satisfy the regulatory, reporting, or compliance requirements of a healthcare organization. Data protection techniques like healthcare data archiving ensure vital historical data is never inaccessible.

The EMR/EHR systems used by the healthcare organization, whether current or past, as well as more specialized systems, such as pharmacies, surgical services, and blood banks, can all be used for healthcare data archiving. Additionally, healthcare organizations frequently have financial systems that can also be archived for similar reasons, even though they do not directly deal with patient healthcare data. The most typical purpose of healthcare data archiving is to store data from old systems.

The following are the primary aims of healthcare data archiving:

Lowering storage costs while keeping older data necessary for analysis or reference
Information retention necessary for regulatory compliance

Our solutions can also be applied to current systems, with automated data transfer on a fixed schedule to keep the archive up to date, whether archiving a soon to be deprecated system in the context of a data migration, acquisition, or even for a system that is expected to be in use for the foreseeable future.

What Is Medical Records Archiving?

The process of creating and maintaining data retention and destruction schedules in accordance with numerous legal, regulatory, and/or industry requirements, laws, and recommendations is known as medical records archiving.

Why is Medical Records Archiving Important?

Medical records archiving is important because private patient information and medical histories need to be treated with care and respect. The following situations frequently prompt healthcare professionals to develop or revise their archival plans:

Building a new medical facility
The sale or closure of a medical practice
Transferring information from paper records to an electronic medical record (EMR) system
Trying to make storage space available
The transfer of data from legacy systems to a new EMR
Adjusting to recently released specifications
Data integrity examination and enhancement

When undertaking any of these tasks, health organizations can reduce costs, increase clinical treatment, retain Medicare enrollment, and prevent fines or other penalties by taking the necessary measures to analyze, archive, and destroy medical records as needed and build patient trust.

Risks of Poor Medical Records Archiving Practices

A complete data archiving policy and process must be established and maintained. Failing to do so is dangerous at best and disastrous at worst. Problems associated with negligence in this regard may include:

Health information on patients in several, inconsistent copies
Completing information requests or transferring patient data to other authorized providers can be challenging.
Money wasted on maintaining pointless, inactive patient records
Failure to recover lost data, which causes the complete loss of all records and information
Noncompliance with quality checks or audits of revenue integrity
Consequences such as being held liable, fines, and losing the opportunity to join Medicare, etc.
Current or previous patient records in the wrong hands (e.g., unauthorized employees or hackers)

Medical Records Archiving Best Practices

Keep these recommended practices in mind as you set out to develop new data archival procedures or evaluate your present ones:

Be judicious with your storage: Classify records as “active” (used/consulted frequently) or “inactive” (rarely used) and store them properly to maintain live and archived medical records as organized, safe, and appropriately accessible as possible. Any effective retention program should include consistent activity cutoff points.
Maintain HIPAA compliance at all times: Be cautious when selecting an archiving platform, migration procedure, or destruction technique because medical records are loaded with PHI. Although HIPAA does not provide a time limit for storage, it does specify how to protect and delete information.
Consult professionals: Don’t be afraid to ask for additional assistance while preparing for and initiating the archival process, whether it comes from legal counsel, data warehousing guidance, ethical advice, IT capabilities, EMR consultation, or anything else that may be beneficial to your business.
Comprehensive staff training: Ensure that all necessary staff receive thorough training on how to securely access historical data, what procedures to follow when making records accessible to patients or other providers, and how to properly discard any information, when necessary.

Medical data archiving consists of two steps: the data extraction and production of a precise and comprehensive set of records; and the archive administration platform for archive access. With both, we can assist.

About our Medical Records Archival Services:

Flexible formatting of the data for optimal readability.
Comprehensive validation process to ensure accuracy
Ability to extract and compile discrete data
All data handling by U.S.-based systems and staff

About our Medical Records Archival Application Platform:

Basic application for locating patients and view/printing the records
Advanced-level application adds user access control and logging for full HIPAA compliance
Enterprise-level application allows managing multiple archives from multiple sources
Self-hosting or cloud hosted by Triyam
Quickly locate patients with our fast and flexible patient locator tool
Log and report archive access by user and chart
Accessible by multiple users at once
Option for discrete data store enabling virtual views and reports
Full data encryption

When choosing archival services, it’s important to understand the risks and benefits. As a dedicated partner in this, Triyam helps healthcare organizations archive their historical patient data from the legacy EHR and decommission the old systems. This helps facilities to stay compliant and saves money as they need not maintain multiple EHRs.