Healthcare CIOs are Shifting from Data Retention to Data Lifecycle Management
New insights from MediQuant point to application modernization, storage costs, AI readiness and fragmented data
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New insights from MediQuant point to application modernization, storage costs, AI readiness and fragmented data environments as forces changing how health systems manage data over time
INDEPENDENCE, OH / ACCESS Newswire / September 15, 2026 / MediQuant, a leader in healthcare data archiving and lifecycle management, today shared new market insights into how health system technology leaders are rethinking long-term data strategy.
As health systems modernize core applications, expand cloud environments and prepare data for AI-enabled use cases, healthcare technology executives say the conversation about legacy and enterprise data is changing. Rather than focusing primarily on how long data must be retained, leaders are increasingly asking: What should remain? Where should it live? How accessible does it need to be? What does it cost to maintain? And when can it be responsibly removed?
The findings are drawn from an executive advisory session MediQuant convened in partnership with Becker’s Healthcare, bringing together healthcare technology executives from health systems across the United States to discuss data governance, system modernization, storage strategy, AI readiness and responsibility for managing data across its lifecycle.
While participating organizations are at different stages of maturity, MediQuant identified several themes that surfaced consistently:
1. Data strategy is becoming more proactive.
Health systems are increasingly bringing data questions into modernization planning earlier, including what information will be needed for clinical care, reporting, analytics, research and future technology initiatives. Several executives also emphasized that stronger enterprise governance is needed to make those decisions consistently.
2. Modernization is forcing harder decisions about legacy data.
EHR, ERP and other major application transitions leave health systems with years or even decades of information that must be addressed. Rather than moving everything into a replacement system, executives discussed distinguishing among data that belongs in the new operational environment, information that should remain accessible outside it, records that must be retained for legal, clinical, payer, regulatory or research purposes, and data that has reached the end of its required lifecycle.
3. Storage economics are becoming part of data governance.
As data volumes grow across on-premises infrastructure, cloud platforms, data lakes, archives and SaaS applications, the cost of keeping information is becoming increasingly difficult to separate from decisions about governing it. Executives discussed cloud consumption costs, hot and cold storage, disaster recovery, duplicate repositories and the importance of matching storage and access levels to how information is actually used. The question is no longer simply whether data can be retained, but whether it is being retained in the right environment at the right cost.
4. Retention policies increasingly need to follow the data, not just the application.
One of the most consequential questions raised during the discussion was how an organization can carry out a retention or disposition policy when the same information may exist in an operational application, an archive, a data lake, a warehouse or another downstream environment. Participants pointed to the importance of enterprise data inventories, lineage, connected systems and governance processes that can identify where data resides and support consistent action across repositories.
“What stood out was how quickly the conversation moved past archiving as an endpoint,” said Mike McGuire, Senior Vice President of Product Strategy at MediQuant. “Health systems are trying to make deliberate decisions about data across time: what should move forward, what should remain accessible outside the new system, what belongs in a lower-cost environment and what can eventually be removed under policy. That is the shift toward lifecycle management.”
AI raises the stakes for lifecycle management
AI added another dimension to the discussion. Executives emphasized that AI depends on a strong data foundation, including governance, consistent definitions and access to useful historical information. At the same time, the expansion of analytics and AI environments can create additional copies and repositories, increasing the importance of knowing where data exists and how lifecycle policies apply to it.
The discussion also underscored that the healthcare industry has not reached a single, mature model for data lifecycle management. Some organizations described established governance committees, enterprise catalogs and connected data environments, while others are still building those capabilities. The common direction, however, is toward more intentional management of data from active use through system transition, long-term access, retention and eventual disposition.
MediQuant is applying these market insights to the continued evolution of its healthcare data lifecycle strategy and DataArk platform, with a focus on helping organizations reduce unnecessary legacy technology, preserve access to information that still has value, use storage more appropriately and execute retention policies more consistently over time.
MediQuant will be exhibiting at Becker’s Healthcare Health IT + Digital Health + RCM Conference, September 14-17 in Chicago. Stop by booth #5200 to learn about data lifecycle management, application decommissioning and the DataArk platform.
About MediQuant
MediQuant is the leader in application rationalization, legacy system decommissioning, and enterprise active archiving for hospitals and health systems. Its DataArk platform helps health systems retire outdated clinical, financial, and administrative applications while preserving compliant, accessible data. With more than 25 years of experience managing complex, large-scale data environments, MediQuant enables health systems to reduce cost, mitigate cyber and compliance risk, and prepare their data for the next generation of analytics and AI. For more information, visit MediQuant.com.
Media Contacts:
Tom Testa, Anderson Interactive
tom@andersoni.com
Amy Glass, MediQuant
aglass@mediquant.com
SOURCE: MediQuant
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