Increasing EMR/EHR adoption dictates greater need for offsite data backup
Despite early resistance, physicians, hospitals, and healthcare clinics are now beginning to implement EMRs (electronic medical records) into their practices and some of the first government HITECH act incentive checks have been issued. Several survey results show physician usage of EMR nearing 50%, and industry experts believe rapid adoption and upgrading activities in coming years.
As paper-based processes migrate to digital form, millions of patient files - everything from patient medical records, X-rays, radiology, dental, and cardiology images (i.e. PACS), and billing - will be stored electronically. Additionally, federal regulations and HIPAA law require healthcare providers to store patient records and images anywhere from five years to the life of a patient.
Needless to say, the deployment of data backup and recovery technology is absolutely critical to healthcare organizations to ensure both patient safety and uptime. However, the influx of electronic data files is causing many medical practices to struggle with the best way to backup their data. Conventional backup methodologies traditionally used by most practices such as tapes, DVD/CD drives, and external hard drives are no longer sufficient. Potential for human error, high failure rates, slow read/write speed, high costs for hardware, offsite storage of media and personnel, and reduced flexibility causes by fixed capacity of tapes, disks and drives have created demand for more reliable data backup methods.
Proven Backup is a business grade, offsite, medical records backup solution. It was developed to address the complex needs of the healthcare community and is the only backup service that is fully supported by medical IT experts who have implemented sophisticated EMR/EHR software, hardware, networks and systems to over 300 medical practices.
Most importantly, Proven Backup conforms to strict HIPAA regulatory security compliance. This includes:
- Completely automatic backup process
- Flexible historical versioning and continuous data protection
- Data is copied, compressed and 256-bit encrypted before leaving your practice's servers, hard drives or computers.
- Data is uploaded via a Secure Socket Layer (SSL)
- Daily email reports informing you of success or failure in the backup process. Our customer service Technicians receive alerts to any transmission issues (in case you missed your email report or are out off the office)
- State-of-the-art, fail-safe facilities (in CT and AZ) for HIPAA compliant storage and storage redundancy. Our facilities in Connecticut and Arizona are kept under strict environmental controls (temperature, humidity, fire), have redundant power supplies, are secure facilities (key cards, guards, surveillance), have 24 hour data monitoring, and super fast fiber optic connections from Tier1 service providers.
- Access to your data wherever and whenever you need using the internet (24/7) and optional “hard” archives are available on CD or DVD
It’s impossible to overstate the importance of backing up your patient and practice data. Have you developed a contingency plan for data backup and recovery in the event of an emergency? The key is finding a solution that enables you to spend your time with patients, instead of monitoring and worrying about how to best store all your irreplaceable data. No other offsite backup provider offers the level of service and healthcare expertise you get from Proven Backup. Contact us today to learn more about how we can take the burden of EMR/EHR backup off of you.