Regional One Health Takes Strategic Approach to Archiving

While IT was evaluating potential archive vendors, the revenue cycle team made an independent decision to partner with MediQuant because of their ability to migrate older A/R that could still be actively worked down, which made the larger archival decision easier.

Regional One Health is now saving $1.4 million each year — a figure that is expected to increase as the decommissioning process continues.

Profile:

Regional One Health specializes in tomorrows

Based in Memphis, Tennessee, Regional One Health is the oldest health system in the state. Founded in 1829, Regional One Health has four centers of excellence, including the Elvis Presley Trauma Center, a level-1 trauma center that serves patients in a 150-mile radius. The health system also has centers of excellence for burn, high-risk obstetrics, and neonatal care. Many physicians in Tennessee receive training at Regional One Health facilities, thanks to a partnership with University of Tennessee Health Science Center. In addition to the main campus with inpatient and outpatient services, the system operates a large outpatient facility in East Memphis and maintains a network of primary care physician offices across the city.

Challenge:

Mounting expenses for legacy systems

Regional One Health leaders already were looking for a legacy data archive when Kim and Daniel Thomas, vice president, IT operations, arrived. The technology veterans quickly agreed with the assessment that an enterprise archival solution was the best path forward. “Some of the legacy systems were on outdated equipment that was being supported by a third-party vendor because even the manufacturer wouldn’t support it anymore,” recalls Thomas. “That’s a lot of maintenance on systems no longer in production, which financially and operationally didn’t make sense. We were also in a very expensive colocation space, but the prospect of moving that equipment without archiving the data was terrifying.”

Solution:

Single solution for their archival needs

After choosing MediQuant, many of the oldest legacy systems have been successfully retired, their contents moved to DataArk, MediQuant’s archival repository. What’s more, the health system has reduced its costs by ending maintenance on legacy systems and improved its cybersecurity stance by eliminating software that was no longer supported by the manufacturer. “Four years into our project with MediQuant, Regional One Health has saved approximately $1.4 million, and that number continues to grow as we decommission more systems,” says Kim. “MediQuant and DataArk continue to add value, and our archiving program has had a positive impact on our bottom line.” Regional One Health has many stakeholders with an interest in the data, including health information management, revenue cycle, third-party billing companies, collections agencies, and human resources, the latter because older occupational health activities were performed by HR technology systems instead of through an EHR. Accessing historic data is just as easy as accessing current data, users say. “Now, we’re entering into clinical partnerships with providers because we’re archiving our legacy, ambulatory EHR,” Thomas says. “There are a lot of clinical end users that look up patient records from that legacy system.”

Results:

Happy users = no complaints

Change management often is the most difficult part of any project, getting stakeholders and staff on board with new procedures when they are accustomed to doing things the way they’ve always done them. Both Kim and Thomas report hearing no complaints from users, which means they are happy with the changes. “Upset people like to talk about it, and happy people don’t say anything. And I have not heard a single negative word from our HR partners, or from our financial services partners,” Thomas says. “The last time I checked, we had not received a support ticket about it since go-live.” Regional One Health has no dedicated archive staff, relying on MediQuant to perform the heavy lifting of archiving data. Kim says he appreciates the ongoing communication about the status of projects, remembering one project that pushed out beyond the original delivery date. “Daniel explained that a project got pushed out, and he shared the MediQuant rationale behind it, which was refreshing because I’d rather find out months before it happens,” Kim says. “It allows me to adjust my expectations without getting painted into a corner over missed deadlines.” Phase one concentrated on ancillary legacy systems, while in phase two the focus shifts more toward EHR migrations. “Now that we’ve addressed the systems that had the biggest return on investment, we’re looking to retire other systems while keeping that data in a useful format for our end users,” Thomas says. “And we couldn’t have a better partner than MediQuant.”

Advice for Others:

Take a longer-term view of your data

Looking back, Kim and Thomas both stress the importance of taking an enterprise approach to archiving, not just looking for quick wins but considering the best way to preserve data and make it actionable in the long term. “We don’t want a bunch of software that does the same thing. We want to find a partner like MediQuant that handles all of our archiving,” says Thomas. Their advice:

• Think strategically and longer-term about archive solutions, choosing a vendor that offers functionality for your needs today — and tomorrow.
• Find a vendor that supports bringing over accounts receivable data.
• Conduct your due diligence, perhaps starting with a request for information (RFI) that gives vendors more flexibility to discuss enterprise strategies, rather than an RFP that’s more limiting.
• Perform a cost/benefit analysis, comparing the costs for legacy hardware and software maintenance against the benefits that an archive can bring.
• Consider the user experience in obtaining archived data.