Only Datamed® EKG Migration services offers Data Cleanup,
Data Pruning and Residual Processing across a multitude of system choices.
The primary reason for having an EKG management system is to preserve a historical record of all EKGs performed and
to be able to retrieve these EKGs on demand. There are both medical and regulatory needs for this data.
A significant
obstacle to changing EKG management systems has been that the data was not compatible between system vendors and so
either the old system needed to be maintained for legacy data or that data was discarded.
EKG migration is the process
of extracting EKGs from a source EKG management system, translating the data from the source format to the destination
format, and then loading the translated EKGs into the destination EKG management system. There are a few vendors offering
this service for very specific combinations, however only
Datamed® EKG Migration services
can provide such a breadth of system choices and also offer options such as
Data Cleanup,
Data Pruning
and
Residual Processing.
Data Cleanup is the process by which legacy records are reviewed by client hospital personnel to clean and correct
the Legacy EKG data, so that when the new EKG system is connected to the hospital's master database (HIS), errors
in patient identification and demographics will be greatly reduced. We have found that typically free standing database
systems such as older EKG Management systems tend to accumulate a lot of "almost but not exactly correct" Patient's
Identifcation (PID) and/or name information. Synchronizing a new EKG system with the HIS with "almost correct"
data does NOT work well! The result is a lot of work resolving these conflicts at a time when treatment situations
or staff work load does not allow. With Data Cleanup corrections with the Patient's Primary Identifcation
Number (PID), Patient's Name, Patient DOB and gender are made prior to the data being loaded into the new EKG System.
The "ChangeMap Index" process, as we call it, creates a flat ascii file of patient records in the pulled legacy
data. That "ChangeMap Index" file is provided to our contact person at the hospital. The file is manually editable
via simple text editors or readable by computer based processors allowing comparisons between the legacy data and
the Hospital Information System (HIS). We highly recommend that the hospital Department "bump" the ChangeMap Index
against the master HIS to feret out the subtle errors and inconsistencies. Corrections are made to the specific
fields within the "ChangeMap Index" file and the file is returned to Datamed/ENGS. The corrections are then
processed along with the legacy migration data to produce a clean database for the new EKG system.
Data Pruning is a parallel process to Data Cleanup as it also uses the "ChangeMap Index" to identify
those records that for what ever reason are desirable to delete from the legacy database. Of course, the hospital
staff could delete records from the older EKG System prior to migration, but this often involves a very time consuming
process on a record by record basis. In the Data Pruning process, the ChangeMap Index record is marked for DELETE
and when the migration is performed, that record is ignored.
Using the ChangeMap Index file, the process of identifying and deleting records may be automated by the hospital
IT Department and compared to the Hospital Information System (HIS). This allows for a much faster and more accurate
pruning process and ensures the migration process will only include those records that need to be maintained.
Residual Processing is actually two complete migrations. The first process occurs while the old system is
still running and will copy all data prior to a specific date - usually 30-60 days before the data is copied to ensure
editing is complete on as many records as possible. All of this legacy data is migrated and loaded into the new system,
at which point the new system can be brought online. Once the new system is live and the old system is static, the data
is pulled again and the residual data (from the cut-off date to present) is migrated and loaded. Since this is a much
smaller data set there is a shorter time frame for it to be loaded.
Migration Data Cleanup and Data Pruning are included in standard pricing for all migrations.
Starting in May of 2009, two options have been rolled into the standard pricing for all migrations.
Data Cleanup allows a customer to validate and correct patient data during the migration process, often by
comparing it against the HIS.
Data Pruning allows selective removal of specific EKG records during migration, and/or removal of all records
before a certain cut-off date (it is highly recommended that all valid records are migrated).
Billing efficiency and patient data integrity have greatly increased the need to link EKG Management systems to the
hospital's Master HIS. That requires the data to be synchronize,
Data Cleanup and
Data Pruning makes
that task easier.
Residual Processing is an option that allows a customer to go live on their new EKG management system with all historical
data loaded, and then have the recent data loaded afterwards.
Unlike other migration methods,
DATAMED® data format translation technology transfers the EKG
data from the old system in raw digital format to the new system in its own native format. In this manner, the original
EKG data may be handled in the same manner as an EKG originally acquired on the new system. Although edit status of
the original EKG is preserved, they may be re-edited as desired, retrieved and printed. Patient demographics are
preserved and all diagnostic statements are transferred as text.
Using DATAMED
® data format translation, EKG records can be migrated
to each of the
following EKG Management Systems:
EKG records can be migrated
from a limited number of the listed EKG Management Systems. For
some systems the manufacturer will need to be involved in the migration. Please contact us at
sales@datamed.com
for more information or if you have any questions.
Safe Harbor Compliance
Datamed LLC / Engineering Solutions, Inc. complies with the U.S. Department of Commerce Safe Harbor Program regarding the transfer of personal
information from the European Union to the United States. Datamed LLC / Engineering Solutions, Inc. is committed to the Safe Harbor Program's
privacy principles of Notice, Choice, Onward Transfer, Security, Data Integrity, Access, and Enforcement with
respect to transfers of personal information from the European Union to the United States in any form, including
electronic, paper, or verbal. For more information about Safe Harbor go to
www.export.gov/safeharbor.
