Kel Pults, DHA, MSN, RN
Chief Clinical Officer, MediQuant
The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed that the United States has a way to go in achieving effective and efficient data collection, sharing, and analysis.
Now more than ever, hospitals must be excellent stewards of their data, using state-of-the-art methods to collect, view, store, exchange, aggregate, and analyze information in the most compliant, effective, and efficient manner.
Most hospitals agree on the importance of updating and improving their EMR. They usually migrate about three years of data but tend to overlook the legacy data that did not get converted — much of which should be maintained in discrete formats, rather than just PDF documents. Patient records, radiological images, labs, and insurance claims all need to be reliable and accessible in an active legacy archive. An active archive is important at the point-of-care. It is also integral to successful legal and compliance audits.
Hospitals can help by shoring up their own data with EMRs and active legacy archives. After all, healthier data helps ensure healthier hospitals and healthier patients.