EMR and EHR Patient Data Archiving

Protecting patient data is a critically important task for any healthcare organization. One of the most effective ways to do this involves EMR and EHR patient data archiving. For one, it helps ensure compliance with HIPAA and other guidelines. At the same time, it also protects data from being lost or destroyed, provides easy access to data for authorized users, and comes with impressive cost-savings benefits as well.

Today, we’ll tell you more about EMR and EHR patient data archiving, including the fundamentals of this process and its benefits.

What is EMR and EHR Patient Data Archiving?

First, let’s start with a basic explanation of data archiving—the process of storing data in a secure location for long-term retention. It usually involves moving data from an active database to a separate archive. This way, it can be accessed if needed but isn’t taking up valuable space in the main database or occupying other resources.

In healthcare, EMR and EHR patient data archiving refers to the process of storing electronic medical records (EMRs) and electronic health records (EHRs) in a secure, long-term repository. EMRs and EHRs contain sensitive patient health information (PHI) that must be carefully protected. Archiving these records ensures they’re accessible when necessary without putting them at risk of being lost, destroyed, or in violation of data retention requirements.

There are a number of situations when EMR and EHR patient data archiving is beneficial or necessary, including:

When retiring legacy systems
During mergers and acquisitions
Facility closures or relocations (Learn more about data considerations for closing hospitals here)
Provider retirement

Where does the patient data go?

One of the top questions or concerns for healthcare organizations undergoing the EMR and EHR patient data archiving process is where the data goes once it is archived.

Patient data is stored in a secure, web-based repository. This repository can be accessed by authorized users from any location with an internet connection. The data is encrypted and protected with multiple layers of security. This makes it virtually impossible for unauthorized users to access it.

Depending on the healthcare data archiving solution an organization uses, the archive may be hosted by the service provider, or the organization could archive locally using a virtual machine (VM) environment, or in the cloud.

At Two Point, our proprietary ACERT™ archives are operating system, database, and browser “agnostic.” They can be implemented in a variety of ways, from client side bare metal to virtual, on-premise to client cloud-hosted. ACERT™ allows you to consolidate disparate legacy systems into a single, lightweight, and easily scalable archive. Learn more about it here.

How much data can be archived?

Another top consideration is how much healthcare data can be archived from an EMR/EHR system. Considering the voluminous nature of healthcare data, it’s an important question to ask.

The answer depends on the EMR/EHR patient data archiving solution an organization enlists. Some solutions are designed to archive an organization’s entire EMR/EHR system. In other cases, they focus on specific types of data, such as radiology images or clinical notes.

Some EMR/EHR patient data archiving solutions have no limit on the amount of data they can store. Alternatively, some charge based on storage usage.

As for what’s right for your organization? When evaluating EMR/EHR patient data archiving solutions, it’s helpful to consider both the long and short-term needs of the organization. This ensures a solution can accommodate future growth, saving your organization more work down the road.

How do I access the archived patient data?

It’s also worth discussing how archived patient data can be accessed by healthcare organizations when they require it.

As we mentioned earlier, EMR and EHR patient data is stored in a secure, web-based repository.

Depending on the EMR/EHR patient data archiving solution, authorized users may be able to access the archive through a web portal or dedicated application. They may also be able to search for specific types of data or patients using keywords or other criteria.

In some cases, EMR/EHR patient data archiving solutions allow authorized users to download the archived data so they can view it offline or use it in other applications. This is useful if the data needs to be shared with someone who doesn’t have access to the EMR/EHR patient data archiving solution or if the data needs to be used in a different application.

No matter how the EMR/EHR patient data is accessed, it’s vital only authorized users have access to it. To ensure only authorized users can access the archived patient data, EMR/EHR patient data archiving solutions typically use role-based permissions and authentication. This means each user is assigned a specific role (e.g., administrator, user, etc.) and can only see and do what their role allows.

What is the cost for EMR/EHR data archiving?

Archiving healthcare data comes with considerable benefits, of which cost savings are included.

In fact, one of the biggest benefits of EMR and EHR patient data archiving is that it can help healthcare organizations save money. By storing data in a secure application healthcare organizations can free up storage space on their servers and eliminate the need for costly hardware upgrades. In addition, by using an EMR/EHR patient data archiving solution, healthcare organizations can reduce their reliance on paper records, which can save money on storage costs, labor costs, and supplies.

When you consider the price of maintaining legacy systems (it’s expensive, a security risk, vulnerable to viruses and breaches, and could potentially cost tens and possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars annually), the cost of EMR and EHR data archiving is far less.

In addition to these operational cost savings benefits, EMR/EHR data archiving can also help reduce compliance-related costs, including fines for violations.

Organizations are required to keep EMRs and EHRs for a certain period of time. The specifics will depend on the type of data and the jurisdiction in which they operate. If a healthcare organization doesn’t store their data accurately or for the necessary time period, they face extensive fines from the state in which they operate as well as from HIPAA.

With all of these factors in mind, EMR/EHR data archiving is a cost-effective solution for healthcare organizations of all sizes.