Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Archiving old patients from AC data base

Is there anyway of archiving 2 yr or older pats out of the database?
Perhaps into a 2ndary DB?

They will always stay there as inactive. I assume you are making them inactive?

It isn't really clear. I believe you have to reference his other post. I think he wants to actually remove the patients due to space and performance. Everyone has stated that would be a) very difficult and would have to be done at the database level and b) it likely wouldn't save much space or make the database more efficient.

I also don't think *removing* a 2 year inactive patient would be advisable in any way. In our state, we have to keep the records on file for at least 7 years for adults, and I think 21 + 7 for minors. I don't think AC would like to be involved with patient's getting lost from the record.

Excellent point.

I wouldn't say it would be THAT difficult.

The problem would be if the practice ever had to reinstall AC - you have that second "archive" database that may no longer be recognized by that pesky process AC has going on now for setting up a new server.

JamesNT

There isn't going to be a significant performance improvement unless you are talking an inactive patient population of 25-50%.

As James points out, the headaches that then ensue aren't worth it unless you are willing to bet that you'll never need the data again.

With the new "improved" AC security, you can't have a second practice database running (for testing, archive data, practice, etc), so activating your archive DB will disable your production DB.

I doubt most practices want to do that during the day.

Yeah, but it's not that difficult, so why not. You can always put them back in. Can't be that difficult.

Well, not for me. After merging two AC databases for six separate jobs and splitting a database for another, creating an archive database would be a snore-fest.

That being said, paying me to ship patients back and forth from one DB to another would be a waste of money when there are other far more cost effective solutions.

JamesNT