University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust (UHDB) has partnered with BridgeHead Software for the provision of software and services to underpin their application decommissioning programme.
The trust plans to centralise its data as part of an ongoing digital transformation project, through which they are standardising their core systems and moving functionality and data over to modern systems. UHDB note the need for better data protection, reducing costs associated with maintaining legacy applications and the requirement for staff to possess specialist skills to support legacy software among their reasons for contracting BridgeHead.
Mark Chester, Head of Digital Technology at UHDB, commented: “At UHDB, we have a number of applications that are no longer in active use, but which contain clinical data that still needs to be accessed from time to time, whether for clinical purposes or as part of our auditing process.
“In addition, we are also obliged to retain this data for 25 years. However, some of these applications run on outdated operations systems and old hardware, none of which have a viable upgrade path. So, to mitigate against system vulnerabilities and potential security risks, we had to find a way to shut down these applications whilst securing the data they contain for continued access.”
The BridgeHead solution that will be used to migrate the data, is said to provide a “standards-based, central repository that brings together patient, clinical and administrative data of all types from across a healthcare enterprise”.
Jim Beagle, President and CEO at Bridgehead, added: “At BridgeHead, we believe data is the lifeblood of healthcare…. With hospitals being prime targets for cyber criminals, we commend UHDB for taking a proactive stance in decommissioning potentially vulnerable legacy applications and mitigating the risks associated with ransomware and malware.”
