In today’s digital world, the Healthcare sector has grown immensely with the introduction of electronic medical records (EMR) and electronic health records (EHR). Health record increases can take a toll on the main data servers.
Management of health records is essential for efficient workflow and less risk of errors in maintaining patient records. Preserving long-term patient data is a healthcare priority, but the maintenance can be costly. Eventually, data archival can come in handy for long-term success.
Subsequently, this article will walk you through the guide to healthcare data archiving and how it has become an essential part of the healthcare world.
What is Data Archiving?
Data archiving secures inactive or infrequently accessed data in a format that ensures its preservation and accessibility for future reference.
It should be remembered that data storage differs from data backup. Data Backup is about creating copies of active data. Moreover, it prevents loss in case of a system failure, data corruption, or other disasters. Back-ups are usually done for short-term purposes and are typically updated regularly.
Easy retrieval and systematic indexing smooth the data storage process for sectors like healthcare. Through archiving data, healthcare organizations can ensure the safety of sensitive patient information, loss of records, and easy access to authorized users.
Reasons Why Data Archiving is Essential in Healthcare
Healthcare Data archiving is typically driven by Electronic Medical Record(EMR) changes, acquisition, or physical retirement. Medical data needs to be preserved while going through transitions. Data archival eliminates regulatory or maintenance concerns and is the best data storage method.
For Healthcare organizations, a cloud-based archive is recommended over in-house platforms. Online cloud solutions are more cost-productive as they have long-term storage capacity. Easy retrieval and analytical features make the online cloud solution ideal for healthcare.
In the healthcare sector, data archiving is crucial as it impacts:
The Healthcare Organization
Healthcare entities benefit greatly from data archiving. Data archiving makes the information flow more systematic by indexing and decluttering, making maintenance easy. Data archiving makes information easily accessible for audit and other healthcare regulatory requests.
The Healthcare Staff
Similarly, data archiving benefits the healthcare staff. The staff can always access old patient records, making healthcare planning easier. For instance, a patient coming in with the flu may have previous medical records of migraines, allergies, etc.
With all the old information easily accessible online, the healthcare staff can form new efficient plans for their patients’ existing ailments while still maintaining their previous records.
The Patients
Meanwhile, data archival of records ensures patient confidentiality. In particular, the patients coming in can rest easy knowing a proper system is there to ensure any security breach in their health records and sensitive information.
Best Practices of Data Archival in Health Care
To overcome the challenges associated with data mergers and migration, healthcare organizations should follow best practices to ensure a smooth and hassle-free merger process. Subsequently, you will find some of the best practices for healthcare data archival in our guide to healthcare data archiving.
Sorting and Identifying Data Before Archiving
Data is carefully categorized in an inventory when an organization opts for a data archiving solution. The first category includes the data required for current operation use, and the second category involves old records that require safekeeping.
Therefore, this practice in the healthcare sector helps keep systematic records of new patients because it maintains old records for future reference.
Data Life Cycle Management
Data Archiving impacts the data life cycle. Firstly, retaining data creates liability and causes lagging while searching data. Secondly, and most importantly, proper regulations need to be implemented for automatically deleting data when their data is due. Some data, however, need to be stored for a longer time or even forever.
Conclusively, considering stored data’s life cycle is an important part of data management planning.
Legal and Compliance Considerations
Like all other sectors, compliance with the rules and regulations is crucial in health. It is important to analyze the laws that apply to your industry and ensure your data archiving policies follow the retention period outlined in the law.
Regularly updating data retention policies in compliance with the set rules helps organizations avoid legal complications and ensure the integrity of archived data. These policies help healthcare executives build an organizational culture encouraging healthy data management, transparency, and security.
Selecting the Right Archival Tool
Various tools can help in assisting the data archiving strategy. Exploring data archiving solutions and having demo tests done to test the solution is an important practice. The data archiving solutions must have all the necessary features for an organization.
While some tools are devoted to data archiving, others offer end-to-end data solutions with built-in data archiving. ShareArchiver is an archiving solution that delivers seamless data storage management, E-Discovery tools, and data protection.
Data Encryption
Organizations should use robust encryption mechanisms to safeguard against data loss during storage and transmission. Encryption is critical in data management, acting as a digital guardian for crucial information. It converts stored data into a code to restrict unauthorized access.
Encrypting data reduces the risk of exposing sensitive information, helping organizations protect data and avoid breaches of compliance regulations.
Healthcare organizations need backup and recovery plans that provide a safety net. These solutions are imperative to the continued success of delivering premium patient care.
Data Integrity
Data Integrity refers to data accuracy and reliability throughout its life cycle. It ensures the data remains unaltered, making it an essential requirement across all fields. Maintaining data integrity is paramount in data archival, as the stored records may serve as historical records for legal or research purposes.
Conduct Regular Audits
Conducting regular audits is essential to recognize and rectify any possible integrity concerns. For instance, audits can include comparing the stored data with the original data, checking for any security breach, and ensuring smooth access to the stored data when needed.
Regular Testing and Validation
Data archiving is not a one-time process. Like any other system, constant monitoring and user feedback help identify areas that need improvement. Constant assessments and updates help protect the data against any possible breach, ensuring that data integrity remains the top priority for the organization.
Interoperability
Firstly, interoperability allows different systems to communicate and share information while streamlining operations. Data integrity and interoperability create room for fewer misinterpretations and errors.
Moreover, interoperability is useful in healthcare organizations where healthcare centers can share and compare information. Data sharing between healthcare providers improves diagnosis and treatment plans.
Mistakes to Avoid in HealthCare Data Archival
To ensure smooth and successful data transfer, healthcare organizations should avoid making common mistakes. These include:
Insufficient Planning
Insufficient planning can lead to delays, errors, and cost overruns. Therefore, healthcare organizations need to have a clear vision of the direction they want their companies to take when going for a data archival solution.
Lack of data governance
Proper data governance practices can maintain data accuracy. Thus, establishing data governance policies and procedures is essential to maintaining data integrity in the long run.
Lack of Training
Healthcare authorities should prioritize staff training when going through data migration. Moreover, all the involved authorities should be well-informed and firmly grip the procedures and how the changes might affect their workflow.
Conclusion
Overall, data Archival is a complex process requiring careful planning and principles adherence. The organizations that adhere to it as a standard practice benefit from it. The key to choosing the right solution is picking someone with the right mix of core capabilities and relevant technology.
A healthcare data archive specialist can help determine the best choice for a healthcare organization. Secondly, these specialists work by considering User tracking, Data storage, End-user access, and Security.
To sum up, Data archiving is a pivotal part of the fast-evolving health sector. Certainly, the key point to remember while choosing a data archive solution is that it provides good customer care. Additionally, it should offer swift responses and help the health organization move forward by taking better initiatives for premium health services.
