Legacy Data Archiving 2019
A First Look at a Changing Market

Author
Ryan Oliver

February 21, 2019 | Read Time: 3 minutes

Mergers, acquisitions, and the purchase of new IT solutions leave many healthcare organizations with legacy systems on their hands. Methods for handling these systems have matured over time, with many organizations today choosing to retire the systems and archive their data. 85% of organizations who have gone this route report positive financial impacts (and many others expect financial benefits in the future). However, the data-archiving vendor market is expanding as new vendors enter the field and current vendors broaden their expertise and offerings. How can organizations find the vendor that best suits their needs? Focused on the current state of the market—yet acknowledging its fluid nature—this report explores (1) the breadth of each vendor’s KLAS-validated archiving experience; (2) customer satisfaction with the data-migration process; and (3) customer satisfaction with the accuracy and accessibility of the legacy data.

Harmony & High-Performing MediQuant Deliver Broad Expertise; ELLKAY Delivers High Satisfaction with Narrower but Expanding Expertise

With many highly satisfied customers, MediQuant offers broad clinical and financial expertise in both ambulatory and acute care settings, and many customers identify MediQuant’s longtime financial expertise as a strength. Harmony Healthcare IT has significant experience archiving clinical data for complex acute care organizations; fewer customers are highly satisfied, partly due to poor support responsiveness, which some customers attribute to the vendor’s rapid growth. Legacy Data Access also has broad archiving expertise, but some customers report a lack of strong communication (both reactive and proactive). High-performing ELLKAY has historically focused primarily on ambulatory clinical data but is expanding into acute care. Newer entrant Galen Healthcare Solutions has a narrower range of validated engagements; the vendor’s services background enables them to be highly responsive and adaptive to customer requests.

breadth of archiving expertise vs high satisfaction

klas validations of applications archived

Data Migration: Miscommunication Delays for MediQuant and Galen Customers; LDA Satisfies by Adjusting to Customer Needs

The first step of the data-archiving process—extracting and migrating the data—can be onerous, and no vendor is immune to problems. Yet how smoothly the process goes is not necessarily a reliable forecast of an organization’s future satisfaction. Overall satisfaction typically improves as organizations get over the migration hump and smooth out their data repositories. For example, MediQuant and Galen Healthcare Solutions customers generally have high overall satisfaction, but about half report struggles with data migration; this may be partly due to the higher percentage of newly live (less than 1 year) customers in these vendor’s samples. However, several MediQuant customers report missed deadlines caused by miscommunication. Reasons for the miscommunication vary, from lack of executive engagement, to staffing turnover, to unclear expectations regarding how many internal client resources will be needed. Galen struggles to set achievable migration timelines and may rely on customer resources to meet deadlines. Interviewed Legacy Data Access customers say their vendor is strong with data migrations, offering flexibility in the number and type of resources they provide.

frequency of data migration extraction struggles

Data Accuracy and Accessibility: ELLKAY Less Aligned with User Workflows

accuracy of data vs accessibility of data ELLKAY customers are mostly satisfied, highlighting the single sign-on functionality and EMR-embedded links. ELLKAY’s below-average performance is due to customers who report underwhelming search functionality and poor labeling for scanned documents. Additionally, multiple customers with archived GE Healthcare systems say some legacy data is not linked to go-forward patient charts (though it can be found by searching for it). Galen customers say their archived data is easy to use because it is kept in context and because the solution has robust search capabilities. Additionally, Galen collaborates well with customers during the data conversion, ensuring that archived data is accurate and meets expectations.

Vendor Bottom Lines

Writer
Elizabeth Pew

Designer
Jess Wallace-Simpson

Project Manager
Sydney Toomer

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This material is copyrighted. Any organization gaining unauthorized access to this report will be liable to compensate KLAS for the full retail price. Please see the KLAS DATA USE POLICY for information regarding use of this report. © 2024 KLAS Research, LLC. All Rights Reserved. NOTE: Performance scores may change significantly when including newly interviewed provider organizations, especially when added to a smaller sample size like in emerging markets with a small number of live clients. The findings presented are not meant to be conclusive data for an entire client base.