Customer Insights

Wondering What to Do with Your Legacy Data?
Discover the Historical Archive Viewer

Catawba Valley Health System
- Hickory, NC
- 258 beds
- MEDITECH 6.08

Challenges
- Migrating from legacy ELR
- Ensure legacy data is easily accessible to clinicians during MEDITECH migration
- Maintain legacy data that can’t be migrated

Results
- Legacy data is easily accessible via Historical Archive Viewer
- SmartLaunch Button provides alerts and easy access to data outside of MEDITECH
- Affordable, short-term or long-term solution for legacy data
Forward Advantage would like to congratulate Catawba Valley Health System for impressive achievements that include four-time Magnet-recognition for nursing excellence and America’s Best 100 Hospital’s “Women’s Choice Winner” for six consecutive years. We are honored to have worked with Catawba Valley since 2003, providing migration services and several solutions that integrate with its MEDITECH EHR. This includes Communication Director for faxing and automated clinical report distribution, Bed Stat for bed status notifications, and Find-It for advanced searching of MEDITECH Business Office documents using optical character recognition.
More recently, Catawba Valley acquired Forward Advantage’s Historical Archive Viewer and SmartLaunch button to ensure that legacy data would remain easily accessible during a conversion to MEDITECH. SmartLaunch appears on patient screens within the EHR and alerts clinicians and other staff to important patient information contained within the Historical Archive Viewer and other systems. Best of all, they can access this information without leaving the EHR.
More recently, Catawba Valley acquired Forward Advantage’s Historical Archive Viewer and SmartLaunch button to ensure that legacy data would remain easily accessible during a conversion to MEDITECH. SmartLaunch appears on patient screens within the EHR and alerts clinicians and other staff to important patient information contained within the Historical Archive Viewer and other systems. Best of all, they can access this information without leaving the EHR.
Catawba Valley Insights

Kim Hemphill
SENIOR BUSINESS SYSTEM ANALYST
What was the reason for acquiring the Historical Archive Viewer?
We implemented the Historical Archive Viewer to view data that we are converting from an old Electronic Legal Record. We are migrating this data into MEDITECH with the help of Forward Advantage. The Historical Archive Viewer, along with the SmartLaunch button, provides easy and convenient access to historical data for our clinical staff from within MEDITECH while we work on migrating the data into MEDITECH.
What are some key benefits to the Historical Archive Viewer?
End users do not have to manually launch another system to pull up patient data. If they are in a patient record in MEDITECH, the SmartLaunch button changes to indicate if a patient has data in the Historical Archive Viewer or other systems. Forward Advantage even took it a step further, so the application will only launch if there is data present.
Can you describe the implementation and training?
The implementation of the Historical Archive Viewer and SmartLaunch required very little effort on our part. We just provided feedback to the Forward Advantage team and they made it happen. The data was copied from the legacy system to a server that was easily accessible, so the implementation did not take long at all. End-user training was minimal, because the system is very easy to navigate and use. The fact that Forward Advantage could apply SmartLaunch to multiple screens within MEDITECH made it easily accessible to all staff regardless of the modules/screens they use in MEDITECH.
How was the support from Forward Advantage?
We have always been impressed with the development and integration teams at Forward Advantage. They are some of the best that we have ever dealt with. We receive very timely responses, and they really know the products inside and out.
What role will the Historical Archive Viewer have post conversion?
After we finish converting the data into MEDITECH, we will use the Historical Archive Viewer to access data that couldn’t be converted, such as obsolete document versions, or data we chose not to migrate into MEDITECH.
Do you have advice for other customers?
For sites considering using this to view data from legacy systems, and not convert into their EHR, I would say that Historical Archive Viewer is an excellent choice. The ease of use and responsiveness of the Forward Advantage team would be the top reasons to implement this solution.
View Our Solutions

Historical Archive Viewer
Learn about this affordable alternative to legacy maintenance or full system conversions

SmartLaunch Button
Alert clinicians and staff to important information contained in other systems

Customer Success Story
Read how CarePoint Health decommissioned multiple legacy systems with the help of Forward Advantage
About Catawba Valley Health System
About Forward Advantage
About Catawba Valley Health System
Catawba Valley Health System serves the five-county Hickory, NC, area, and is comprised of three integral parts – Catawba Valley Medical Center, Catawba Valley Medical Group, and Catawba Medical Foundation. Our current hospital holds 258 beds and our skilled medical practitioners partner with our highly trained staff to provide the highest level of medical expertise using the latest, state-of-the-art technology available. With a wide variety of medical specialties offered to diagnose, treat, and operate on virtually any type of injury or illness, our health system is nationally recognized for quality and excellence, including the distinction of becoming only the 32nd Magnet hospital in the nation. Since 1967, Catawba Valley Health System has featured the region’s largest not-for-profit community hospital, with our mission being to improve the health status of the Catawba Valley.
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About Forward Advantage
Learn how Forward Advantage helps hospitals and healthcare organizations provide better patient care with fast, secure access to information.
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