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Data Archiving

Allscripts Data Archiving

Sunrise, Paragon, and TouchWorks are three different systems that share a name and no longer share an owner. CHA archives all three — along with the revenue cycle and the scanned documents that usually sit somewhere else entirely.

Start Here

Three Systems Wear the Allscripts Name

Allscripts grew by acquisition, then split apart. The extraction work differs by product line, and so does the company you have to call.

Sunrise

The acute-care platform, an Eclipsys product before the 2010 merger. Where a hospital also runs the Sunrise registration, scheduling, or financial modules, they sit on a shared platform alongside Clinical Manager — so establish exactly which modules are in scope before agreeing an extract.

Paragon

The small-hospital and critical access system, acquired with McKesson's Enterprise Information Solutions business in 2017. Paragon is a Microsoft-based platform whose single integrated database carries the patient record and the revenue cycle — retiring it retires your billing history on the same day as the chart.

TouchWorks

The ambulatory EHR for large and hospital-owned physician groups. It is normally paired with a separate practice management system — often Allscripts Practice Management — joined by interfaces, not a shared database. Two products, two extracts, two sets of patient identifiers.

Who Supports Your System Today

Two transactions moved this portfolio. In 2022 Allscripts sold its Hospitals and Large Physician Practices business to Altera Digital Health; the company that remained renamed itself Veradigm. A hospital that still says “we run Allscripts” is usually an Altera customer, and its scanned documents may belong to a third vendor again.

Supported by Altera Digital Health since 2022

SunriseParagonTouchWorksSTARHealthQuestdbMotionOpal

Kept by the renamed company, Veradigm

Veradigm EHR (formerly Allscripts Professional EHR)

Sold to a third vendor, Hyland, in 2018

OneContent (formerly Horizon Patient Folder)

Extraction Reality

The Chart Is Rarely All in One Database

These are the gaps that turn a finished Allscripts archive into a second project six months later. Scope them while you still have leverage with every vendor involved.

The Scanned Chart Is Behind a Different Vendor

Paragon and STAR sites commonly store scanned documents in OneContent, called Horizon Patient Folder under McKesson. Allscripts sold that business to Hyland in 2018, so the images sit behind a separate company, contract, and extract request. Sunrise sites often use OnBase for the same job.

Ask Whether Notes Are Documents or Field Values

Ask how clinical documentation is stored before you scope an extract. Where a system holds notes as structured field values rather than as finished documents, those values only read as a note once something renders them — and HIM cannot certify a field dump as the legal record. Require rendered documents in the deliverable, and validate by opening them rather than by counting rows.

Interfaced Results Live in Two Places

Lab, radiology, and pharmacy results that arrived over HL7 exist inside the EHR and often in fuller form in the source LIS, RIS, or pharmacy system. Decide which copy is your record of truth before extraction, not after the ancillary is switched off too.

Revenue Cycle Runs on Its Own Clock

Paragon and STAR hold claims, remittances, and AR detail driven by payer recoupment windows, cost report support, and audit response — not the medical record schedule. Billing routinely needs access months after the last clinician signs out.

Patient Identity Does Not Line Up Across the Set

A hospital running Paragon inpatient and TouchWorks in its clinics has two identifiers for the same person, plus a third in the document repository. Reconciling them so one search returns one patient is the work, not a formality at the end.

Evaluation

Seven Questions Specific to an Allscripts Retirement

Ask these of any archiving vendor, including us — they are the ones this product family adds to a general checklist.

  • Which Altera contract covers extraction assistance, what does it cost, and how long is the current queue?
  • Does the extract include the OneContent or OnBase repository, or only the EHR database?
  • For Paragon: does the archive carry patient accounting — claims, remittances, AR detail — or clinical data alone?
  • For TouchWorks: is the paired practice management system in scope, and how are its patient identifiers reconciled with the EHR's?
  • Can the archive reproduce a signed note the way it was rendered, with its authentication and amendment history intact?
  • Does the release-of-information and disclosure log come across? HIPAA's accounting-of-disclosures obligation reaches back six years.
  • Who reconciles record counts against the live system, and what is the sign-off before anything is powered down?

For retention schedules by state, the archive-first decommissioning playbook, and the vendor-neutral evaluation checklist, read The Community Hospital's Guide to Legacy Data Archiving. For how the archive itself works — search, reporting, release of information, and security — see CHA Viewer.

Sequence

A Realistic Order of Operations

Timelines move with the module count and the state of your contracts. Two things usually set the real end date: the vendor extract queue, and accounts receivable.

Inventory the Product Family

Start here

List every module, interface, document repository, and the reports HIM and finance actually run. Confirm who holds the contract for each piece — since 2017, three transactions moved parts of this portfolio to three companies.

Open the Extract Request Early

In parallel with the inventory

Vendor-assisted extraction has a queue and a price. Start it while you are still inventorying, and get file formats, delivery method, and the treatment of scanned images in writing.

Load, Then Reconcile Twice

After delivery

Reconcile record counts by encounter type and by year, then have HIM open real charts against the live system. Finance runs the same exercise against AR balances and remittance history.

Go Live View-Only, Keep the Source Read-Only

Before the contract ends

Staff move to the archive for lookups while the legacy system stays up read-only as a fallback. You are ready when the release-of-information team stops opening the old login on its own.

Decommission on the Revenue Cycle's Schedule

After AR wind-down

Clinical cutover and financial cutover are not the same date. Paragon and STAR sites commonly hold billing access well past clinical go-live, so time contract termination to the last claim, not the last chart.

FAQ

Allscripts Archiving Questions

Who do we contact for an Allscripts data extract?
It depends which product you are retiring. Sunrise, Paragon, and TouchWorks go through Altera. Veradigm EHR, formerly Allscripts Professional EHR, stays with Veradigm. Scanned documents in OneContent go through Hyland, which bought that business in 2018. Some hospitals need all three conversations.
What happens to our practice management data when TouchWorks is retired?
TouchWorks and its practice management system are separate products joined by interfaces, so they are two extractions with two sets of patient identifiers. Scope both, and agree up front how the identifiers get reconciled.
Will archived notes come back as the signed document, or as raw fields?
That is decided by the extract, so settle it before you sign one. Require a rendered document rather than a field dump — the note as it was signed, with its authentication and amendment history intact — because HIM cannot certify a field-level export as the legal record. Test it during validation: pull a signed note from a prior year and read it end to end.
Do we need to keep Paragon running to answer a payer audit?
Not if the archive carries the revenue-cycle detail and can produce it as a PDF. Test that during validation: pull a closed account from a prior fiscal year and confirm the claim, remittance, and adjustment history come back complete.
Has CHA archived these systems before?
CHA has run legacy decommissioning and archiving projects on MEDITECH, Cerner, CPSI, Paragon, and Sunrise. That matters here because the hard part of this work is platform-specific: where the documents live, what the conversion leaves behind, and which extract the vendor will actually agree to. We have had those arguments before on this platform.
Is CHA affiliated with Altera, Veradigm, or Hyland?
No. Community Hospital Advisors is an independent consultancy. We name Altera Digital Health, Veradigm, Hyland, and their products descriptively, to identify the systems we archive data from. There is no partnership, endorsement, or certification implied.

Retiring Sunrise, Paragon, or TouchWorks?

Bring us your module list and your contract dates. We will tell you what a complete extract has to include before you sign anything.

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