This webinar will explore who needs to be involved in AI implementations, what responsibilities should be defined, and how records and information governance teams can earn a stronger seat at the table.
After an EHR cutover, the goal is simple: give authorized users the historical information they need without forcing them back into the legacy system.
That need looks different across the organization. Clinicians need prior encounters, medications, and results. HIM needs fast release-of-information support. Revenue cycle needs claims, payments, statements, and remittance history until outstanding accounts are resolved. IT needs to support all of it without maintaining aging infrastructure indefinitely.
If even one critical workflow still depends on the old EHR, the system stays online—and licensing, security, vendor support, infrastructure, and staffing costs stay with it.
A smart archive strategy starts before shutdown. Decide what moves to the new EHR, what belongs in the archive, how users will access it, and what must be validated before the legacy environment can be retired.
Migration and archiving solve different post-cutover problems. Migration supports active workflows inside the new EHR; archiving preserves historical information for reference, billing, audits, legal needs, release of information, and retention.
| EMR Data Migration | EMR Data Archiving |
| Moves selected data into the go-forward EHR. | Preserves historical data outside the production EHR. |
| Best for active, frequent clinical and operational workflows. | Best for historical reference, release of information, billing, audits, legal needs, and retention. |
| Optimized for use inside the current EHR workflow. | Optimized for governed search and retrieval when the information is needed. |
| Usually brings over a curated subset of history. | Can preserve a broader historical record without loading it into the production system. |
| Supports work in the new system after cutover. | Supports legacy application retirement after access and data are validated. |
Most organizations need both. Current-care and daily operational data move forward; lower-frequency historical records belong in a governed archive designed around how teams will use it.
Start with the work that must continue after the legacy application is gone: a clinician reviewing history, HIM completing a release, revenue cycle researching an old balance, compliance responding to an audit, or legal locating records under hold.
For each scenario, define who initiates the request, how the record is identified, what information is needed, what users must view or export, how quickly the task should be completed, and which permissions or audit evidence apply.
Those scenarios turn a broad archiving project into testable workflows. They also surface requirements early, for example, whether HIM needs to search by document type, service date, source system, or patient identifier.
This webinar will explore who needs to be involved in AI implementations, what responsibilities should be defined, and how records and information governance teams can earn a stronger seat at the table.
Use the scenarios to guide five planning decisions:
Inventory the applications, modules, databases, documents, images, interfaces, and reports in scope. Assign ownership and route each record to one of four paths: migrate, archive, dispose under approved policy, or hold for review.
Define roles, views, search paths, and permissions before go-live. Then test them with real users; a valid login does not prove someone can find, understand, and use the right record.
Archive value depends on context. Preserve the identifiers, dates, document types, source-system names, encounter details, and metadata that help users recognize and retrieve the right information.
If your organization has grown through acquisitions, plan for searches across multiple medical record numbers, facility names, and source systems.
Confirm access, audit logging, retention rules, and legal hold processes before launch. Information owners remain responsible for retention and disposition, even when a partner hosts the archive.
Also name the team responsible for access requests, policy updates, audit support, issue resolution, and future additions so the archive does not become the next unmanaged legacy environment.
Technical reconciliation matters, but shutdown readiness requires more. Validate representative records, attachments, metadata, search results, permissions, reports, exports, and the workflows the archive must support.
Test while the source system is still available. Resolve, document, and retest exceptions before approving decommissioning.
Once workflows, scope, access, governance, and validation criteria are clear, partner selection gets easier. Instead of comparing broad claims about storage or security, ask providers to show how the archive will support the work that continues after cutover.
Use representative data in demos. Ask how users will retrieve information and how structured data, documents, images, and identifiers will be extracted, mapped, indexed, validated, audited, and supported after go-live.
Clarify ownership for source preparation, mapping decisions, validation, exceptions, scope changes, and ongoing service. The archive needs to work long after the project team disbands.
An archive succeeds when the legacy EHR can be retired without disrupting daily work. Users know where to find historical information, teams can complete routine requests, and access, retention, and audit controls work as intended.
Getting there requires planning across IT, HIM, clinical, revenue cycle, compliance, and legal teams—but the payoff is a cleaner path to decommissioning and a historical record people can actually use.
Planning a legacy EHR retirement or deciding what to do with historical data after cutover? Learn how Access Unify | Health can help preserve access, validate archived information, and support a more confident path.
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