By Stephen Matheson, Vice President, Product Management and North American Sales, BridgeHead Software
At BridgeHead Software, we feel it’s important to continually assess healthcare environments, especially when considering legacy applications. Healthcare organizations worldwide are still tasked with maintaining old, ‘out of production’ systems, largely due to compliance and governance reasons as well as for their clinical value.
But, there are notable benefits from retiring legacy applications. Aside from the huge costs associated with maintaining these applications (which are considerable – licensing, support, storage, personnel, etc.), healthcare organizations are also opening themselves up to cyberattacks, as seen in the recent spate of ransomware demands, e.g. Wannacry. These attacks are often as a result of security loopholes found in antiquated, unsupported technologies. And, oftentimes, the referenceable patient data found in these legacy applications is difficult for clinicians and support staff to access – largely as these systems are stand-alone, proprietary and difficult to integrate.
These reasons led me to develop a piece for Health IT Outcomes – a leading industry source providing healthcare professionals with guidance on technology system selection, integration, project management, and change management – that explores in more detail the hidden and often underestimated benefits of retiring these legacy applications, which often cost hospitals extra time, money and resources to maintain.
Helping healthcare organizations unlock data residing in legacy applications and making it available as part of the EMR is a major focus for us at BridgeHead which is why our HealthStore® Independent Clinical Archive helps provide clinicians with that important 360-degree view of current and referenceable information – stored intelligently, cost-effectively, and safely.
Read my Health IT Outcomes article by clicking here. You can also contact me directly at steve.matheson@bridgeheadsoftware.com for more information on how BridgeHead Software can help you optimize your hospital’s system and data protection environment.
