Healthcare software modernization services

A modernization usually starts with assessing existing applications, infrastructure, integrations, and workflows. After analyzing these findings, you define a strategy and roadmap that aligns with defined business objectives (this stage gets tricky without applying required expertise).

The implementation may include:

• Encapsulation
• Rehosting
• Refactoring
• Rebuilding
• Replacing
• Rearchitecting

A modernization’s overall success is achieved through patience – not just blindly replacing everything “old”. Many upgrade individual apps or components of infrastructure while keeping critical parts without change.

This process might include:

• Running systems – old and new parts – in parallel
• Interoperability standards to maintain data exchange
• Thorough testing
• Scheduling updates, and other “best practices”

There are many different business risks of legacy healthcare systems, for example:

• Noticeable slowdowns, system crashes – an unreliable, low-performance system
• Regular updates and patches, bug fixes – an overall unsustainable system
• Security vulnerabilities
• Scalability limitations
• Difficulty integrating with modern healthcare systems
• Discontinued support from original technology providers
• Outdated interfaces, complex navigation, and other common problems that cause user frustration.
• Difficulty meeting HIPAA, GDPR, and other industry standards that cause business risk 

Talk to our team about healthcare software development.

The typical key steps to replace a legacy healthcare system might include:

• Step 01. Assessment & strategy planning
  – A comprehensive legacy audit 
  – A thought-out strategy planning 
• Step 02. Technology & infrastructure planning
  – The identification of modern technology stacks 
  – The planning of upgrades
• Step 03. Data migration
  – Data cleansing to remove existing redundancies and inconsistencies
  – Data protection to prevent data loss or corruption
• Step 04. System migration and modernization
  – Either encapsulating, rehosting, refactoring, or rebuilding the existing legacy application
  – API development to facilitate data exchange with other healthcare-specific applications
• Step 05. Integration & interoperability provisioning
  – First, ensuring regulatory compliance (HIPAA, GDPR, HL7, FHIR, and other industry standards)
  – Second, addressing potential challenges with integrating third-party services
• Step 06. Testing & quality assurance
  – Functional and performance testing
  – Load testing to ensure the system can handle high traffic
• Step 07. System deployment
• Step 08. System support and maintenance

Get a free estimate for healthcare application modernization. 

The cost will depend on scope, size, complexity, the number of apps, the approach you choose, and more.

• Small initiatives may cost only tens of thousands of dollars
• Enterprise programs can require major investments of several million dollars

The timeline will depend on team, domain, expertise, legacy architecture, existing integrations, and more.

• Smaller initiatives may take 3-6 months
• Large projects can take 12-24 months or longer

What do you get?

• No more operational bottlenecks
• Sensible savings
• Data security and compliance for protected patient records
• Overall flexibility and scalability for future business growth, and many other things!

Are there any challenges?

• Data complexity
  – Legacy systems usually store vast amounts of information in unstructured, outdated formats 
  – Some systems are using custom-built logic for specialized medical calculations
• Lost documentation
  – Outdated systems were built decades ago, often with insufficient documentation 
  – Hidden dependencies between modules or other third-party components can break it all
• Monolithic architecture
  – Many systems are monolithic, which makes it difficult to introduce new features 
  – Poor implementation of microservices can cause a range of barriers and issues 
• Third-party integrations & components
  – Many systems usually rely on external, third-party integrations 
  – With discontinued vendor support, some components might require additional workarounds

You don’t always need to replace a system to benefit from generative AI capabilities – that’s actually quite risky. You can gradually integrate new features while modernizing underlying architecture.

Common examples:

• Clinical documentation
• Medical summarization
• Intelligent search
• Administrative routines

Through automation, you eliminate repetitive processes and support cleaner workflows without refactoring. Modern automation can help to exchange data securely and trigger necessary workflows.

Common examples:

• Patient scheduling
• Appointment reminders
• Claims management
• Prior authorization