EMR Data Migration

Our EMR Migration Support Includes:

• Business Case and Data Analysis
• Workflow Analysis, Design, and Optimization
• Enterprise Design and Access
• Data Migration, Transformation, and Load Tools
• Migration Rollout, Testing, and Support
• Platform Support and Maintenance
• Program Management

Most mature EHR providers provide data extraction and export capabilities. At iBridge, we can help you prioritize the steps to ensure a successful data conversion project.

Invest Time Upfront to Prioritize a Data Conversion Roadmap:

1. Data critical to Patient Care
2. Lab Results
3. Radiology Documents and Results
4. Patient Mediations
5. Scanned Patient Documents (Business Office and Clinical)
6. Immunization Records
7. Allergy Lists
8. Progress Notes, Consults, Letters, Reports and Other Clinical Documentation
9. ECG and Vitals
10. Patient Demographics
11. Billing or General Account Information

Define the Data Format:

Our team will help quantify the volume of data easily classified (discrete) and balance of data not organized in a typical row and column database (unstructured). This step helps define the level of complexity of the conversion effort. Lab results are a good example. One system may store these results as ASCII files or simple text files, but the caregiver may require the lab results presented in a flow-chart format, this simple request requires data manipulation skills to reformat the data accurately every time a chart is created. Understanding this effort upfront brings greater predictability to cost and effort.

Interoperability and HL7 Standards

Today, EHR and interoperability is part of product roadmaps for all EHR providers who have critical user mass. This makes the process of conversion process easier because it is not an afterthought but part of the software design. By using HL7 standards, the burden would then shift to areas requiring cross-referencing the different clinical vocabularies of the current system and the target systems. Unstructured data such as Images, PDFs, and Tiff files may add challenges to the conversion process however at iBridge we have many years of experience converting unstructured data for meaningful use.

Outsource or Not

Your internal team has the best experience in the current system, harness this knowledge while working with the iBridge team to set the tone and expectation of the process. Our approach is collaborative; we will go through extensive problem definition processes with different user groups and engage the vendor of the new system to ensure a smooth transition and transparency. We will review all your options when converting data from one system to another. The value of engaging iBridge is our deep understanding of working with and managing large data stacks and our commitment to a smooth transition.

Stage, Test, Re-test, and Deploy

Our infrastructure team will provide the staging area and supporting tools for conversion and migration data by practice group. Users are encouraged to test and push the system to make sure it conforms to the culture, needs, and workflow of the practice. This is an important step. The system should not dictate how the practice runs; the practice decides what is in their best interest. This process may require customization of interfaces and we recommend engaging us early so we can help you negotiate how the EMR vendor will support your migration.

When most of the data migration is complete, we will open the staging area to simulate real-life conditions of clinical and business users. After we are satisfied, we have met all benchmarks and milestones, and acceptance testing is complete, we will negotiate the go-live date across practice groups to minimize resistance and to control additional tweaks post implementation to reduce cost over-runs. The fewer the customizations the lower cost and more time we spend upfront with you and early, the better the end result.