The process of archiving healthcare data can be daunting. Aging, quirky applications to deal with. The threat of losing critical data. Unpredictable twists and turns for those who are unprepared.
This is precisely why LDA’s unparalleled experience benefits healthcare IT leaders and their teams.
With more than 350 unique applications retired in the past 20+ years, we’ve pretty much seen it all. Our deep knowledge has led us to create a highly repeatable, proactive methodology that we employ during every system retirement.
Using this methodology as a guide, our operations team has compiled a set of key questions that project managers should be asking during an archiving project and the likely source of the answers, as well as. We’ve also included the most common—but avoidable—project mistakes and delays.
Now, we’d like to share this wisdom with you. In this final article in a three-part series, we look at mid-to-late phases of healthcare data archiving: build, validation and close/go-live.
Phase 4: Build
Key questions | Info source | Related mistake | Resulting delay due to… |
|---|---|---|---|
Who will act as test users? | SMEs | Gaps in user ID, email, full name and level of access | Testers not notified or cannot gain access |
Who will act as production users? | SMEs | Gaps in user ID, email, full name and level of access | Users not notified or cannot gain access |
Who will act as the approved administrator? | Security | Administrator assignment |
Phase 5: Validation
Key questions | Info source | Related mistake | Resulting delay due to… |
|---|---|---|---|
Have SMEs identified test case patients? | SMEs | Failure to start this process at project inception | |
Is a test plan available? | SMEs | Incomplete plan (percentage/number of records) and testers not committed to testing within a certain time | UAT lag |
Are internal UAT forms required for signoff? | Project manager | PM lacks understanding of the process until the last minute | Wait for signatures and validation from team members |
Phase 6: Close/Go-Live
Key questions | Info source | Related mistake | Resulting delay due to… |
|---|---|---|---|
If single sign on will be used, have tokens been requested? | Identity management | SSO tokens not properly issued | |
Has the archived application been approved through change control? | Change control board | Lack of final approval | |
Has a communication plan been developed to inform application users? | Project manager | Plan is available, but incomplete (no go-live date, instructions on how to access, etc.) | User adoption lag |
If the system is financial, who will send balancing figures? | SMEs | Incomplete information provided | |
Will final data load be needed? | Data not sent in time prior to migration to production | Improper/delayed data load | |
Has a go-live checklist been developed? | Project manager | Final checks cannot be completed |