Data Migration (Part 2)

Against the background of both rapid organisational change and complex systems change within the NHS, it is becoming increasingly important for NHS organisations to take clear ownership and strategic control of their clinical and operational data.

There is also the temptation to take a quick fix approach to solving data quality or mapping issues whilst ignoring the need to embrace and integrate existing data in a controlled manner.

In this, the second of our 5in5 articles on data migration, we consider the approach taken to data transformation projects, including some of the alternatives to full migration.

Approach is Key

The most important element in any data migration activity is the establishment of data owners and key stakeholders. They will have ultimate responsibility for the systems data which is being targeted. This approach ensures that decisions concerning data requirements are taken from an organisational perspective and not driven by technical design needs or assumptions. It is essential to engage closely with these individuals to determine a number of key elements to the migration exercise including:

measurable data quality objectives;
system audit and reporting requirements;
determine data to be migrated to incoming systems;
determine strategies for data mapping and translation;
testing strategy and ownership;
policy for management of non-migrated data; and
system retirement policies.

This early and thorough stakeholder engagement forms the foundation of decision making throughout the project and is often overlooked until last minute go-live issues become apparent. People are often reluctant to take ownership of problems at later stages so blame becomes the only option as the project grinds to a halt. Therefore the message is to establish data ownership and responsibility with individuals within the organisation from the outset.

To Migrate or Not to Migrate?

Full migration can be the cleanest option to take, albeit resource intensive, costly and often protracted (see Data Migration: Are Your Sure You Want to Go There?) However with the myriad of systems to be addressed and the time and cost pressures faced by NHS organisations, more pragmatic approaches need to be considered.

With the current focus and pressures on LSP systems deployment, a key consideration is legacy data quality and whether this meets the stringent readiness requirements for system migration. One strategy being adopted for achieving the necessary data quality standards is to extract data to be cleansed, often using an external service provider as a one off process.
The key problem here is that the resultant data quality is improved without the root cause being identified. If the cleansed data is not promptly and fully migrated the data quality will only degrade over time as before and need to be addressed at a cost again in the future.

The LSP solution has never been designed to address all of the information needs within the NHS and therefore will not necessarily accommodate a full migration strategy appropriately.

The more likely scenario is for some data to be left behind on legacy systems with the continued burden of data protection, information governance, reporting and ongoing system maintenance. Therefore the need for a hybrid approach to data management has evolved with the emergence of the searchable legacy archive as a key information system component within the NHS.

At the other end of the scale there is a strong commercial push for NHS organisations to outsource the end to end management of system data from cleansing to reporting, including the functionality offered by historic data repositories for reporting and compliance.

However, this is a costly exercise, committing revenues long into the future and it fundamentally compromises the ownership and responsibility necessary from within the organisation to keep control of its data.

An Alternative Strategy

There is no doubt that data transformation is essential in meeting the needs of the modern NHS. At the same time, it is essential that data ownership and management becomes engrained within an organisation's information management strategy. To this end, the need to build data management skills internally is key to the successful ongoing operation of clinical and operational systems.

An alternative approach to the full migration scenario is based upon a hybrid view of data transformation, where a consistent approach and methodology is engrained within an organisation and forms the foundation for an integrated approach to legacy data. To make this work a robust architecture such as Oakleigh's Data Transformation Architecture is essential, the key features of which are:

rapid data quality auditing;
data extraction and cleansing mechanism;
data repository and integration engine;
searchable legacy archive - a historical data repository for non-migrated data, enabling retirement of legacy systems where appropriate and retention or ongoing use of data; and
interface for integration with MIS reporting engine - reporting against the data repository for performance, statutory, operational and ad-hoc information.

There are a number of benefits to this approach over full data management solutions including:

retention of knowledge by the client and a consistent approach to future data migration scenarios;
data audit and cleansing becomes a core component of Information Services provided internally within the organisation;
integration platform is established for both historical and live system reporting;
platform enables compliance with data governance and regulatory requirements; and
client organisation retains control of its data and information services and is ready for future deployments without external support.

If you have any questions about the subjects covered in this white paper or you would like to find out more about how Oakleigh Consulting could help your organisation, please contact us on 0161 835 4100 or email us.

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