When a practice signs with a new EMR, two project plans should exist. The vendor sends one: data conversion, training, go-live. The second one, the IT side, usually does not exist until something from it fails. This is that second plan, drawn from the migrations we run for practices across DFW and Houston.
Before you sign: the environment check
Have someone verify the new system's actual requirements against your actual environment: internet bandwidth per location, workstation specs and operating system versions, and anything the vendor lists as unsupported. The saddest go-live expense is discovering on week one that half the front office needs new machines. If the new platform is cloud-based, price internet failover into the project; it stops being optional the day the server leaves the building.
Sixty days out: inventory and interfaces
Inventory every system that talks to the current EMR: labs, imaging, e-prescribing, clearinghouse, patient portal, devices. Each interface needs an owner, a re-point date, and a test plan on the new side. Interfaces are the most common go-live failure because three parties each assume another one is handling them. Also inventory every printer, scanner, label printer, signature pad, and card reader, and confirm each against the new system, because "it worked with the old EMR" guarantees nothing.
Thirty days out: backup and the legacy question
Take a complete, verified backup of the old system and its documents before anyone touches conversion, and decide the legacy system's fate on paper. Record retention rules mean the old data stays accessible for years: as a read-only archive, a hosted legacy instance, or an export into the new system. Decommissioning the old server without a retention plan is a compliance incident waiting for a records request. Our backup and disaster recovery work treats migration week as the highest-risk week of the year, because it is.
Go-live week: hands and triage
Put IT hands on site for the first days, not on call. The tickets that decide whether go-live feels like success are physical and local: the room where printing fails, the scanner that will not feed to the new document center, the workstation that cannot keep a session alive, the Wi-Fi dead zone that was tolerable until the EMR became cloud-based. Pre-agree the triage path between your IT partner and the vendor's go-live team so no one burns an afternoon on hold with the wrong party, and have the downtime kit printed in case the cutover misses its window.
After: security catches up
New system, new logins, new risk picture. Within the first month: MFA enforced on the new platform, old-system access revoked, EDR confirmed on every endpoint the new EMR touches, the security risk analysis updated to reflect the new architecture, and your cyber insurer's application checked against the new reality so the answers on file stay true.
Frequently asked questions
Plan the IT workstream across the same 60 to 90 days as the vendor's plan, with the heaviest effort in the final two weeks and go-live week. Compressed timelines are possible; skipped steps are what cause the war stories.
They handle their software and the data conversion they contracted for. The network, hardware, peripherals, interfaces on your side, security, and the old system's retention are yours unless you explicitly assign them.
Retention rules require continued access for years, so the realistic options are a read-only archive, a hosted legacy instance, or a full export. Decide before decommissioning anything; recovering data from a dismantled server costs multiples of planning.
Usually, with a weekend or phased cutover, a printed downtime process for the gap, and on-site support for the first mornings. The practices that close unexpectedly are the ones that skipped the environment check or the interface inventory.
Yes. Whatever platform you chose, we run the IT side of the move and then support the environment after, across every major system our practices run.
Where this connects to what we do.
EMR migrations are a standing part of our design build and project management work, and post-migration environments land in the same flat-rate managed IT coverage as everything else. Ready for a straight answer about your IT? Call (972) 776-6366 or contact us.