Customer Insights
CarePoint Health Decommissions Multiple Legacy Systems with Forward Advantage
CarePoint Health
- Hudson County, New Jersey
- Bayonne Medical Center, Christ Hospital in Jersey City and Hoboken University Medical Center
- MEDITECH EHR
Challenges
- Decommissioning over 5 legacy systems
- Costly and/or unavailable system support
- Providing clinicians easy access to important information in older reports
Results
- Freed internal resources from maintaining older systems
- Reduced costs
- Removed the risk of system failure on older equipment
- All information available in main MEDITECH EHR
CarePoint Health’s three community-based, acute care hospitals provide a wide range of medical services to New Jersey’s Hudson County. When Hoboken University Medical Center and Christ Hospital were acquired in 2012, a need developed to decommission legacy systems. The goal was to reduce support and maintenance fees, while also improving workflow by having all clinical reports available in the main MEDITECH EHR. Having previously used Forward Advantage for its MEDITECH SCA conversion, CarePoint Health readily selected Forward Advantage for this latest initiative. Since 2014, Forward Advantage has helped CarePoint successfully decommission multiple legacy systems using its proprietary Document Imaging and Scanning Conversion (DISC) services. With information available in MEDITECH, the health system is not only saving on maintenance fees, but it is ensuring the availability of older reports and mitigating the risk of system failure from older equipment. Lupo Vaccarella, CarePoint Health’s Corporate Manager of Financial Applications, recently offered his insight on the project:
CarePoint Health Insights
Lupo Vaccarella
CORPORATE MANAGER OF FINANCIAL APPLICATIONS
Which systems have been decommissioned using Forward Advantage’s legacy data conversion services?
We have systems that we still need to explore, but the ones that have been decommissioned or are in progress are:
- Carevue
- OnBase
- EDIM
- Pentax Endo
- GE Viewpoint
What were the motivating factors behind decommissioning these systems?
The information stored in these systems was needed by clinical staff. By converting the reports to MEDITECH, all reports can be retrieved from one system. Also, software and hardware support/maintenance with these vendors was becoming costly and/or unavailable. We wanted to free up our internal resources by not having to maintain these systems.
Why did you select Forward Advantage?
We continued with Forward Advantage because of the success of previous conversions and their familiarity with our MEDITECH system.
What do you feel is the key value behind Forward Advantage’s migration services?
The conversion plans have been thorough and effective, and Forward Advantage’s analysts work closely with our internal IT analysts.
What was your experience with Forward Advantage’s customer service?
We have not had any major issues, but if we found any discrepancies while validating, our concerns were addressed immediately by the Forward Advantage analyst.
Your two latest decommissioning projects have been handled using a Forward Advantage project manager. Can you describe your experience and whether you would recommend this as a support model?
I would recommend this support model. Our project manager helps with the project planning and coordination, and she sets the goals and needs of the project. She has improved coordination between our analysts, the tech staff and the Forward Advantage conversion team.
Do you have ROI figures you can share since decommissioning these systems?
I don’t have any figures to share, but there are clear benefits to decommissioning systems. The main benefit is having all the information available in MEDITECH. Continuing maintenance on these systems was too costly. Additionally, some systems were outside maintenance windows, which left us vulnerable to not having access to the data.
Has Forward Advantage’s service helped CarePoint meet any broader organizational goals?
Absolutely. For clinicians, having information readily available has improved the accessibility of older reports. We’ve also removed the risk of system failure on older equipment.
Do you have any advice you would offer other hospitals looking to decommission legacy systems?
Clients should make sure to have an analyst work closely with the Forward Advantage team. Validations are extremely important, and Forward Advantage worked closely with us to resolve any issues.
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About CarePoint Health
CarePoint Health brings quality, patient-focused health care to Hudson County. Combining the resources of three area hospitals, Bayonne Medical Center, Christ Hospital in Jersey City, and Hoboken University Medical Center, CarePoint Health provides a new approach to deliver health care that puts the patient front and center. CarePoint leverages a network of top doctors, nurses and other medical professionals whose expertise and attentiveness work together to provide complete coordination of care, from the doctor’s office to the hospital to the home.
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