Legacy Health IT Systems – So Old They’re Secure

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the ticking time bomb that is legacy healthcare IT systems. The topic has been top of mind for me ever since Galen Healthcare Solutions wrote their Tackling EHR & EMR Transition series of blog posts. This is an important topic even if it’s not a sexy one.

I don’t think we need to dive into the details of why legacy healthcare IT systems are a security risk for most healthcare organizations. Hospitals and health systems have hundreds of production systems that they’re trying to keep secure. It’s not hard to see why legacy systems get forgotten. Forgotten systems are ripe for hackers and others that want to do nefarious things.

Although, I did hear someone recently talking about legacy health IT systems who said that they had some technology in their organization that was so old it was secure again. I guess there’s something to say about having systems that are so old that hackers don’t have tools that can breach such old systems or that can read old files. Not to mention that many of these older systems weren’t internet connected.

While I find humor in the idea that something could be so old that it’s secure again, that’s not the reality for most legacy systems. Most old systems can be breached and will be breached if they’re not considered “production” when it comes to patching and securing them.

When you think about the costs of updating and securing your legacy systems like you would a production system for security purposes, it’s easy to see why finding a way to sunset these legacy systems is becoming a popular option. Sure, you have to find a way to maintain the integrity of the data, but the tools to do this have come a long way.

The other reason I like the idea of migrating data from a legacy system and sunsetting the old system is that this often opens the door for users to be able to access the legacy data. When the data is stored on the legacy system it’s generally not used unless it’s absolutely necessary. If you migrate that legacy data to an archival platform, then the data can be used by more people to influence care. That’s a good thing.

Legacy health IT systems are a challenge that isn’t going to go away. In fact, it’s likely to get worse as we transition from one software to the next. Having a strategy for these legacy systems which ensures security, compliance, and extracts value is going to be a key to success for every healthcare organization.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

   

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