Healthcare Data Archiving: Everything You Need to Know

Why healthcare data archiving is such a big deal? Every sector of the healthcare industry churns out massive amounts of data. Approximately 30% of the global data volume is generated by the healthcare industry, ranging from every consultation & test result to every digital form across related sectors.

But here are the questions that are bugging us – are all these data being stored the right way? Does the stored data meet compliance standards? Can these data be retrieved when needed? The answer is not always ‘Yes’, which we can understand the hard way through Sarah’s life experience.

When Sarah’s mom passed away, she wanted to understand the cause of her death. Not for any ritual, but to comprehend what Sharah’s genetic design might reveal about her health. Hoping to get her mom’s full medical history, she reached out to the hospital where her mom had undergone treatment over the years. After a few days of back and forth, the support staff replied: “Sorry, we don’t have access to her records before 2017.” Years of vital information had gone just like that.

Sarah’s story isn’t unique. It’s a wake-up call for healthcare organizations. Archiving medical records is critical to address compliance risks, on-demand data recovery, dollars incurred from hefty fines on legal risks, and IT costs of maintaining this data in outdated systems.

Why Healthcare Data Archiving Matters?

Is it just about storing old records? Great question! So, you’re probably wondering, “Why all the fuss about healthcare data archiving? Isn’t it just about tucking data away?” It’s way more than that. It’s about solving real problems that keep healthcare providers up at night and about protecting the past to power the future.

Legacy Healthcare Apps and Historical Data: After Migration Status

During migration, the healthcare organizations are often faced with the challenge of dealing with legacy applications like EMR platforms, EHR systems, billing platforms, radiology software, and lab information systems. Okay, you have migrated to a new EHR. Now, what do you do with the old system’s data? And the old EHR system that has been in use for years, sometimes decades? These questions tons of healthcare folks ask!

A Florida hospital that just switched from a 1996 Meditech EHR to a modern cloud platform. These outdated EHR/EMR systems cannot handle the modern requirements of analytics and patient insights. Imagine a gold mine of data generated for a single cancer patient and the value of those historical records: Drug combinations, radiotherapy cycles, chemo responses, side effects, lab results, clinical notes, and the list goes on.

Think about the insights hidden in that data – What worked? What didn’t? What patterns emerged over time? If the patient has a relapse after a few years, this historical data can shape the next phase of treatment. No healthcare provider would want to toss this into cold storage or delete it entirely. Instead, they retain them for decades to meet patient care, compliance, and litigation needs.

Same time, keeping your legacy systems like Meditech or early Allscripts running indefinitely is costly, vulnerable to breaches, and tough to access. Deleting the data? Nope, that’s a HIPAA violation! Then, what is the solution? You can take a strategic move by first ensuring a compliant healthcare data migration to the new system, and then i) Archiving the historical data from the old system, and ii) Decommissioning the legacy application entirely. Healthcare data archiving is not a choice but a patient care responsibility.

Healthcare Modernization Must Include Strategic Data Archiving

Does healthcare modernization require a data archiving strategy? Many people ask this question, and the answer is definitely ‘Yes’. Healthcare enterprises are investing in better, faster, and smarter systems, from digital transformation strategies to cloud-based platforms and AI-driven decision-making. But modernization is not only about what’s new but also about what you leave behind. What should it be?  Let’s find out from the clever decision taken by a healthcare provider, narrated below. 

A large urban hospital has been using the same EHR system for over 20 years. The system has done its job. However, it’s now outdated, slow, and doesn’t integrate well with new technology. So, the hospital decides to switch to a modern cloud-based EHR that offers better interoperability, real-time patient data access, and AI-powered analytics.

Yes, sounds like a perfect upgrade! Here is the catch. The old system holds over 20 years of historical patient data from lab results, diagnosis, and treatment histories to insurance claims and more. Regulatory bodies like HIPAA require the hospital to retain this data for a minimum of 7 to 25 years, depending on the record type.

Keeping the legacy system live just to access those records? Expensive and Risky. Instead, the historical data should be left behind for archiving using a compliant healthcare data archiving solution.

Managing Historical Medical Records During Healthcare Mergers & Acquisitions

“Our healthcare network just merged with another. Now we’ve got a mess of duplicate records! Help!”. It is the story for almost every healthcare merger. A flood of duplicate records, scattered systems, and data chaos. When two healthcare providers come together through a merger, acquisition, or partnership, it’s never just about buildings or branding. What often gets overlooked is the massive wave of inherited data that comes with it.

One hospital might be running Epic for its EMR, while the other uses Cerner. Suddenly, you’re dealing with multiple systems that don’t talk to each other for separate billing systems, lab reporting tools, and imaging archives. Still holding years of vital patient and operational data. Acquiring hospital plans to unify everything under one modern EMR platform. But here is the challenge: what to do with all that legacy data?

Keeping old legacy systems just to access records occasionally means paying for a no-longer-used system license and infrastructure. The solution? Archiving all historical medical records from multiple EMRs into a centralized, secure, and compliant archive. Clinicians could still retrieve records if needed, and the organization could shut down the old systems for its benefit.

How Fast Is the Data Growth of the Healthcare Industry?

When we talk about healthcare, it extends far beyond doctors, hospitals, and other direct medical services. The healthcare industry encompasses a wide range of sectors, including R&D, insurance, pharmaceuticals, medical device manufacturing, and related supplementary services such as medical billing and IT. Due to its speed, scale, and impact across all these sectors, the healthcare industry is witnessing an unprecedented surge in data generation, and the growth has become explosive.

An IDC (International Data Corporation) 2020 report forecasts that with a compound annual growth rate of 36%, global healthcare data is projected to reach 2,314 exabytes (2.3 billion terabytes) by 2025. Approximately 80 MB of data is generated for a single patient from EHR, medical imaging, and lab results. A big part of healthcare data (2.3 ZB in 2020) is of health insurance claims (Frontiers).

How Does Healthcare Data Explosion Create New Challenges?

Every touchpoint of healthcare generates data from every health record to insurance claims. Healthcare enterprises are struggling to keep up with the pace and complexity of data growth. Yes! It is getting harder to manage the real challenges that need to be tackled by healthcare enterprises.

Rising Cost of Zettabytes

Facing a financial burden simply because your healthcare records are still sitting in outdated legacy systems? Many enterprises like yours continue to cling to aging platforms like old EHRS, outdated billing apps & diagnostic systems. Storing coldly with the intention that the data in them might be needed someday.

Maintaining historical data in legacy systems is not cheap. Just ask yourself this! Do you need these old records locked away in costly legacy systems in a production environment? What if there is a smarter, modernized way to free up unnecessary spillage by moving to a secure archive without falling out of compliance?

Growing Risk of Security & Compliance

Protecting healthcare data is non-negotiable. A single clinical data breach can be a catastrophe! Now guess what? Fines in millions – look at Morgan Stanley’s $60M hit. For sensitive patient data, it’s mandatory to meet stringent regulations like HIPAA, GDPR, or other local regulations.

Have you ever stopped to look at where the real challenge of security and compliance begins? In most cases, it starts with outdated legacy systems that were not designed to cope with today’s security threats and stringent compliance requirements. Vulnerable to data breach, unauthorized access, or accidental loss. Staying compliant is risky and you have to stare down penalties, legal issues, and reputational blow.

How to Archive Medical Records Effectively with Archon Suite

How about if one trusted modernized healthcare data archiving solution handles all the challenges with complete ease and security? Platform 3 Solutions’ Archon Data Store (ADS) makes it happen, designed to archive sensitive healthcare data securely and keep you ahead of the demands of regulatory standards.

Archon Suite offers you the go-to solution for your modernized healthcare data management with its proven products – Archon Analyzer, Archon ETL, and Archon Data Store.

From legacy platform decommissioning and data migration to archiving data securely and compliance-ready, Archon Suite has been built to meet the needs of modern healthcare data archiving.

Legacy Decommissioning to Data Migration: Easy Journey with Archon Suite

Do you hang on to legacy platforms like Cerner, Epic, or Amalga HIS just to hold critical historical medical records? Might seem quite conventional, but have you ever stopped to consider the heavy price tag and legal storm attached to it?

Expensive to maintain. Hard to secure. Challenging to retrieve. Now what? To get rid of the legacy system mess without losing critical historical healthcare data. With Archon Suite, decommission what you don’t need; migrate and archive what you do need.

Archon Analyzer Understands Your Legacy Data Landscape

All starts with Archon Analyser! Before pulling the plug on and retiring the legacy systems, Analyser helps you know exactly what is necessary for smooth historical data migration from legacy platforms.

• Analyzing Data Volume & Structure– From patient records to large image files, it analyses the dataset size, file types & formats, table structures, and data age
• Identifying Sensitive Data – Automatically identifies and classifies sensitive fields, containing PHI data like diagnosis and lab results & PII data like name and contact details, insurance details, etc.
• Flagging Redundancies & Duplications – Identifies and flags unnecessary data such as duplicate patient records, redundant data fields, and repeated diagnostic records. This improves data quality and storage costs before migration
• Comparing Retention Policy Matches & Violations – compares data against applicable policies and classifies data to be safely deleted, to be retained longer, and the policy violations that might cause compliance and audit risks

Accurate & Secure Migration with Archon ETL

Once the Analyzer gets ready with your data landscape roadmap and defines what needs to be archived, Archon ETL comes in as a connector. Migrating the classified and catalogued data from your old systems to a modern, secure archive ensures nothing important is left behind.

• Extracting Critical Data Securely – No matter how outdated or fragmented, it extracts the data securely, ranging from EHR, billing systems, clinical applications to insurance claims and audit logs
• Preserving Metadata for Traceability – Metadata matters in healthcare data. Understands the context, timelines, and meaning of each record, ETL preserves the metadata throughout the migration
• Transforming & Mapping – Transforms and maps old data structures to new ones, ensuring key data retention, consistency, and ease for future searches and queries
• Cleansing for Quality Data – Fixes duplicate records, outdated entries, and inconsistent formatting for clean, consolidated archiving in a compliant-ready format.

With the automated and auditable processes of Archon ETL, your healthcare data is extracted, cleansed, structured, mapped, and transformed.

Secure & Compliant Archiving with Archon Data Store (ADS)

Now your healthcare data enters its new permanent home – Archon Data Store (ADS). Not just dumping a data heap! A secure, centralized environment built to meet the exacting demands of the healthcare industry. Your historical records stay protected, compliant, and accessible.

One Archive with All the Answers – Archon Data Store 

Historical Records are Always Available, Always Reliable

For patient care continuity, audits, legal reviews, or insurance needs, your historical medical records and operational data remain fully accessible with Archon Data Store. Means, a physician needs a patient chart from a decade ago; your audit team needs documents – everything is ready right there.

Real Cost Savings Go Beyond Just Operational Relief

It’s the volumes of inactive, historical data sitting quietly, demanding attention in the healthcare industry more than the active data. May not be used regularly, but can’t be discarded for later patient care and compliance. ADS shows its cost benefits in helping healthcare enterprises.

• Data Compression – shrinks the footprints of large datasets like EHRs and imaging files and reduces storage costs
• Storage Tiering – frees up costly storage of cold, infrequently accessed data
• Flexible Deployment Options – on-prem, cloud, and hybrid archival allow you to choose a cost-effective storage strategy for your enterprise
• Decluttering IT Environment – improves production environment performance, thus reducing the IT cost, licensing, and maintenance costs

Data Security is a Responsibility More than a Feature

In healthcare data archiving, security is a responsibility rather than a technical requirement. Not as an add-on, security is built into the foundation as the core of ADS.

• Role-based Access Controls – reduces the risk of accidental exposure and internal misuse
• Immutable Archiving – helps you challenge legal integrity & audit readiness
• Data Bunker for Sensitive Data – fortified security zone for PHI, PII, and other sensitive healthcare information with – End-to-end Encryption and Tokenization
• Secure Interoperability & Governance – integrating with live EHR or sharing with external audit/compliance
• Defensible Deletion – prevents accidental loss of critical records

Built-in Compliance You Can Trust

HIPAA, HITECH, GDPR, & evolving Retention Policies are ongoing obligations for healthcare enterprises. Archon Data Store takes care of it with

• Automated Retention Policies
• Legal Holds
• Audit-ready Immutable Logs

eDiscovery & Quick Data Retrieval

Need to respond to an audit request? Have to pull up a patient record? Preparing for a lawsuit? Archon Data Store makes it easy with its efficient search and retrieval capabilities.

• Metadata-driven search for more precise queries
• Smart Indexing finds records instantly with complex queries
• Sub-seconds Retrieval with speed and accuracy

Archon Data Store turns your old data into a powerful strategic asset for your healthcare organization. Keeps your business responsive and in control.

Patient3Sixty – 360° Comprehensive View of Patient Record

When a patient’s healthcare records are scattered across various EMRs, getting a complete picture is a slow and tedious process. Where Patient3Sixty comes in with a design to solve it. The flagship product from Platform 3 Solutions, built specially for the healthcare industry, delivers a 360-degree view of each patient’s medical history.

• Single Unified Interface
• Integrating Primary EMRs
• Accounts Receivable (AR) burn-down
• Built-in Audit & Reporting

Patient3Sixty enables you to elevate your ability to manage and govern patient data. A single platform that brings together everything and supports your smarter compliance and faster insights.

Simplify Healthcare Data Archiving and Protect Patient Care with Archon Suite

If not now, then when? Shift your healthcare data management to a strategic move with Archon Suite. From secure legacy retirement and metadata-rich data migration to compliance-ready archiving and fast retrieval, Archon Suite empowers your business.

Archon Data Store will take care of your healthcare records and let you focus on delivering exceptional patient care.

Take the Next Step

Discover how Archon Data Store can help you gain complete control over your healthcare data and how Patient3Sixty enables you to access a 360-degree view of patient records. Talk to our expert today.