Recovering And Using Bad Data Is Cost Effective - The Makings Of A Good Data Conversion
To state a real life example, if a bushel of apples has one or two apples that are beginning to spoil that does not make the remainder of the apples bad or useless.
The same is true of a data conversion.
Often conversions are not completed or not even started because some portion of the data is bad or in some way viewed as unusable.
Don't leave the good data behind because of some bad records.
Be aware it is not unusual to find some questionable data in the legacy data files.
This could be Social Security numbers some of which have an invalid format or are entirely missing from the patient record.
In this case one option is to provide a report of the bad and missing numbers.
The client can then find the correct SSNs and enter them manually.
It is obviously better to do manual data entry on a few records than for all of them.
If the new system requires a SSN, insert 999-99-9999 or 000-00-0000 which are valid formats but useless numbers.
The presence of either number will alert the staff to get and insert the correct SSN.
Guarantors are another good example.
If the legacy data doesn't provide the patient linking information required by the new system, the guarantors can still be converted and identified as such but not linked to any patient records.
An electronic list can be provided with information to be used by the front office or billing staff to make the appropriate link.
Having the guarantor demographic information available makes the manual effort relatively easy and somewhat resistant to data entry errors.
In other cases where a satisfactory formula to repair or work around the bad data cannot be found, the conversion team can provide a list of the bad records with information to assist a staff member find and fix the data.
In other situations where the data cannot be repaired or used, it is simply not included in the data conversion.
This happens less often than most of us would think.
However, these are business decisions.
They are not technical decisions.
Technology should be used to help validate the information and provide options for migrating it to the new system.
It is a mistake to allow technology to make a business decision.
The data collected over some number of years has great value and a significant amount of money was spent obtaining and recording it.
This author's suggestion: contract with a good migration team and transfer as much of the data as possible to your new system.
The same is true of a data conversion.
Often conversions are not completed or not even started because some portion of the data is bad or in some way viewed as unusable.
Don't leave the good data behind because of some bad records.
Be aware it is not unusual to find some questionable data in the legacy data files.
This could be Social Security numbers some of which have an invalid format or are entirely missing from the patient record.
In this case one option is to provide a report of the bad and missing numbers.
The client can then find the correct SSNs and enter them manually.
It is obviously better to do manual data entry on a few records than for all of them.
If the new system requires a SSN, insert 999-99-9999 or 000-00-0000 which are valid formats but useless numbers.
The presence of either number will alert the staff to get and insert the correct SSN.
Guarantors are another good example.
If the legacy data doesn't provide the patient linking information required by the new system, the guarantors can still be converted and identified as such but not linked to any patient records.
An electronic list can be provided with information to be used by the front office or billing staff to make the appropriate link.
Having the guarantor demographic information available makes the manual effort relatively easy and somewhat resistant to data entry errors.
In other cases where a satisfactory formula to repair or work around the bad data cannot be found, the conversion team can provide a list of the bad records with information to assist a staff member find and fix the data.
In other situations where the data cannot be repaired or used, it is simply not included in the data conversion.
This happens less often than most of us would think.
However, these are business decisions.
They are not technical decisions.
Technology should be used to help validate the information and provide options for migrating it to the new system.
It is a mistake to allow technology to make a business decision.
The data collected over some number of years has great value and a significant amount of money was spent obtaining and recording it.
This author's suggestion: contract with a good migration team and transfer as much of the data as possible to your new system.
Source...