A new system chosen, and a lot of history to move
Your clinic has decided to move off an old practice management system, perhaps because it is no longer supported, or because you are growing and need something that works across branches. The new supplier offers an import. But the old system holds years of patients, devices with serial numbers, fitting dates, repairs, aftercare plans, recall dates and notes, and some of it is in fields that were used in creative ways.
The worry is not the patients who are typical. It is the ones who are not.
Where hearing clinic migrations go wrong
- Device details are stored in free text or in several fields, so they do not map cleanly.
- Duplicate patients exist, created by different branches or by mistyped names.
- Recall dates and aftercare plan terms are held in custom fields that the standard import ignores.
- The link between the practice system and Noah records breaks if patient identifiers change.
- Repair histories and attached documents are not included in the export.
- Nobody checks the result against the old system, only against the export file.
What a poor migration costs
Recall that stops working, so reviews and upgrades are missed for months. Warranty dates lost, so repairs are charged wrongly. Duplicate records that confuse reception. Plan patients who are not recognised as entitled. And a team that loses trust in the new system in its first week.
| Data | Risk | What we do |
|---|---|---|
| Patients | Duplicates, old addresses | Identify likely duplicates for a person to decide |
| Devices and serials | Free text, missing dates | Parse and map, list gaps for review |
| Recall dates | Custom fields ignored | Mapped explicitly and checked |
| Aftercare plans | Terms lost | Moved with plan type and payment reference |
| Noah link | Broken identifiers | Checked with a sample in both systems |
| Documents and letters | Left behind | Exported and attached, or archived |
How we run the move
- We map everything the old system holds, including custom fields and how your team actually used them.
- Before the move, likely duplicates and gaps are listed for your team to resolve, so the new system starts clean.
- Data is transformed into the new system's import format, with device details and recall dates handled explicitly.
- A trial import goes into a test environment first. Your staff check a sample of real patients, including awkward ones, in their normal workflow.
- Record counts and key fields are checked against the old system itself, not just the export.
- The final move happens at a quiet point, with recall, plans and reminders checked on the first day.
- The old data is kept readable, either in the old system or in a searchable archive, for as long as your retention policy requires.
We work alongside your new supplier's own import process, filling the gaps it does not cover, rather than replacing it.
Timing matters in hearing care. We avoid moving during a busy trial period for many patients, and we list every pair currently on trial, every open repair and every loaner out, so none of them is lost between the old system and the new one.
What you end up with
A new system that starts with clean records, complete device histories and working recall. Staff who have tested it with real patients before go-live. Noah links that still work. Old records you can still search. And no months-long drift where reviews quietly stop happening because a field did not come across.
Is this where you are?
- You are changing practice management system in the next year.
- Your current system has custom fields for recall, plans or devices.
- You know there are duplicate patients across branches.
- The supplier's import covers patients but not everything else.
- Nobody has checked how Noah records will link after the move.