The real challenge is preserving meaning
What does bp_sys mean?
For someone familiar with a legacy clinical system, the answer might be obvious. Outside that system, however, it may simply be an unfamiliar field name.
This illustrates one of the challenges of modernizing clinical data. Moving information is not enough. Its clinical meaning needs to move with it.
With Lifecare Smart Data Harmonizer, we are applying AI and openEHR to make that process smarter, while keeping experts in control.
When I have presented this approach at events recently, the response has been clear: this is a challenge healthcare organizations recognize, and an approach they want to see put into practice.
Using AI to make clinical data mapping smarter
openEHR provides structured clinical models that help give AI the context to interpret and map legacy clinical data. Lifecare Smart Data Harmonizer brings this together with AI-supported mapping and human expertise, helping reduce the manual work involved in turning legacy information into structured openEHR data.
Instead of creating every mapping from scratch, AI can analyze the data and propose mappings for experts to review and approve.
The principle is straightforward:
- AI analyses and proposes.
- Experts review and approve.
- The approved plan guides the migration.
This allows clinical and technical experts to focus their time where their knowledge adds the most value, while retaining control over the migration. The approach is already being applied in production, bringing AI-supported harmonization into real-world use.
The harmonised data can be used within Lifecare Clinical Suite and Lifecare Open Platform, or made available to any openEHR-compliant CDR. This gives healthcare organisations a way to preserve and reuse clinical information while choosing the platform that fits their modernisation strategy.
From migration to reusable data
The value does not have to end with a single migration. Once legacy information is harmonized into structured openEHR data, it can provide a foundation for continued access to historical information and further use of that data.
For some organizations, this may mean preserving valuable information while retiring legacy systems. For others, it may provide a starting point for new clinical applications or broader modernization.
Turning legacy data into a foundation for what comes next
Legacy clinical data is more than information from the past. It holds knowledge that can continue to support care, innovation and better use of data in the future.
By combining AI-supported mapping, the structured clinical knowledge of openEHR and human expertise, we can give legacy information a life beyond the system where it originated.
Your legacy data already has a history. Now it can have a future.
Discover how Lifecare Smart Data Harmonizer can help turn your legacy clinical information into structured, reusable openEHR data for Lifecare Clinical Suite and Lifecare Open Platform, or any openEHR-compliant CDR.
Interested? Get in touch!
