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Success Story
The Value of Choosing the Right Data Management Partner
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Success Story Snapshot
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Seattle Children’s partnered with ELLKAY to securely consolidate and archive legacy data as the organization transitioned from multiple disparate systems to a single Epic platform. With seamless access to historical patient data directly within Epic, Seattle Children’s improved clinical workflows, reduced legacy system costs and security risks, and gave approximately 1,800 clinicians a more complete longitudinal view of their patients.
Organization Overview
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Size
407 total licensed beds (which includes Medical/Surgical, Cancer Care, Pediatric Cardiac and Neonatal intensive care units (ICU), Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, Rehabilitation Medicine).
Recognition
Ranked as one of the top children’s hospitals in the country by U.S. News & World Report, Seattle Children’s serves as the pediatric and adolescent academic medical center for Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho, representing the largest region of any children’s hospital in the country.
100%
archive uptime
1,800
clinicians with simplified workflows
~13 years
of data archived
The Challenge
One Epic Transition, Years of Legacy Data
Seattle Children’s used multiple electronic health record (EHR) systems and needed a data strategy to effectively archive its legacy data from disparate sources in order to move to a single EHR platform.
This effort involved:
- Determining the value of the legacy data and how to secure that data.
- Understanding the retention laws and organizational policies for how long patient data must be available.
- Presenting that data back to end users in a meaningful way to meet each user’s specific needs.
- Finding a partner who could help with legacy data archive while being fiscally responsible for the organization.
"What really stood out in this project is ELLKAY’s devotion to meet customer needs with a customer-first approach."
Dr. Zafar Chaudry
Former SVP, CDO, and Chief AI & Information Officer
The Solution
Creating One Home for Historical Data
The project began with addressing Seattle Children’s need to move to a single EHR platform on Epic. The first question was ‘what to do with all the legacy data?’ The hospital needed a partner to help guide its data management strategy. It made sense to work with ELLKAY to build a platform that could ingest all the data. The ultimate goal was to provide an archival product to meet the application needs of various end-users across the organization from clinical to business operations. One challenge was needing to meet lab data requirements to maintain Seattle Children’s lab certification. ELLKAY took this requirement into consideration and was able to meet the organization’s needs.
A true partnership formed between ELLKAY and Seattle Children’s to help the organization realize their data strategies and future needs. Seattle Children’s Former SVP, CDO, and Chief AI & Information Officer, Dr. Zafar Chaudry, explained that they chose ELLKAY after validating that the company was able to secure, protect, archive, backup, and restore the legacy data. More importantly, data could be transferred in the future without having to pay astronomical data transfer fees.
ELLKAY helped Seattle Children’s achieve true interoperability, connecting the data to existing — and future — systems. “That was the value proposition with ELLKAY — data could be transferred easily at any given time, and it was still Seattle Children’s data. The beauty of the ELLKAY archive solution is you can match patients with their archived data. Within our Epic system, we can launch the archive, and we don’t have to search for the patient again. The information will be there because the matching is done via single sign-on. That’s really going to drive better utilization,” said Chaudry.
“Thanks to ELLKAY for being a true partner and achieving an archive that delivers what Seattle Children’s clinical staff need. They worked with my team until the final product was what we wanted.”
- Dr. Zafar Chaudry, Former SVP, CDO, and Chief AI & Information Officer, Seattle Children’s
The ELLKAY Effect
Simplifying Access, Strengthening Care
The collaboration between ELLKAY and the team at Seattle Children’s resulted in satisfied end users across the spectrum of care. Their legacy data archive improved patient care with a greater longitudinal view of patient data. It also improved clinical workflows by enabling access to legacy data without leaving Epic’s Hyperspace. This single sign-on (SSO) capability significantly improved provider satisfaction and ROI efficiency. ELLKAY showed knowledge and expertise around the data strategy, ingesting the data into their system, and helping the Seattle Children’s team validate and ensure that the data was clean and accurate.
Chaudry described the benefits observed were first and foremost protecting the patient data and decommissioning systems that could have posed security risks to patient health information. The organization realized financial savings by decommissioning legacy software systems and eliminating ongoing licensing and maintenance fees — as well as the resources needed to sustain these disparate systems. Many other parts of the organization, such as Health Information Management, benefit from proper data management as they can more effectively do things like Release of Information.
There are approximately 1,800 Seattle Children’s clinicians who have access to the archive to view patient historical data through the EHR interface, resulting in a holistic patient view to improve the quality of care.
“The archive system has delivered 100% uptime with no issues, clinicians are happy with the views, and the archive solution helped us successfully reach reaccreditation in our lab. Part of the accreditation process involves the ability to show access to lab results and data for an indefinite period of time. Seattle Children's ingested roughly 13 years of data into their archive. I’m very pleased with the archive product,” said Chaudry.
Seattle Children’s is ready to expand their archive capabilities beyond clinical, lab, and archiving, including patient accounting, ERP, and other types of legacy data. Decommissioning the organization’s aging and disparate ERP systems will help save time and resources as Settle Children’s moves their data to a single solution.
The Impact
A More Complete View, a Better Experience
With ELLKAY, Seattle Children’s transformed years of legacy data into a secure, accessible resource that supports clinicians without disrupting their Epic workflows. The result is a more complete view of the patient, reduced legacy system burden, and a scalable data strategy built for the organization’s future.
Expanded Historical Access
Enabled approximately 1,800 clinicians to access archived patient data directly through the EHR interface for a more holistic patient view.
Strengthened Data Security
Retired disparate legacy systems that could pose security risks while securely preserving critical patient information.
Streamlined Clinical Workflows
Provided single sign-on access to legacy data without requiring clinicians to leave Epic or search for the patient again.
Supported Regulatory Compliance
Archived roughly 13 years of data while maintaining indefinite access to lab results, helping Seattle Children’s successfully achieve lab reaccreditation.
Reduced Legacy System Costs
Eliminated ongoing licensing, maintenance, and resource expenses by decommissioning aging software systems.
Delivered Reliable Performance
Achieved 100% archive uptime while providing clean, accurate, and readily accessible historical data across the organization.
