Combat Hospital Data Loss With Offsite Solutions
There no longer exists a medical environment that doesn’t take into account how critical data is to their day-to-day operations. Furthermore, regulations requiring the safekeeping of data also force the hand of hospital administrators. Fortunately, providers are approaching hospital data loss with an eye to the cloud – a solution that provides an offsite approach to keeping data safe and 99.99 percent available at all times.
With the right disaster recovery plans in place, hospital data loss becomes nearly a non-issue. A good plan takes many events into account including data corruption. It’s a business continuity strategy that many providers are taking seriously today – making sure high availability of data, including medical images, has the highest possible uptime. Outsourcing to cloud-based vendors who use the best data centers at multiple geographical locations is the best solution.
When partnering with a third party to eliminate hospital data loss, there must be a clear understanding about what is expected. For instance, should the power go down in a facility, what is the protocol? If you’ve gotten connected with the right vendor, this will have been addressed long in advance of implementation. While your data isn’t lost in this situation, you’ll need to know how to access it when you’re operating with limited capabilities.
One of the best recommendations from providers who have researched vendors is to test them to see if they fully understand the environment in which you are working. It’s akin to a fire drill or a tornado drill – know who is going to do what in case of emergency.
When you land on a quality provider, you’ll have scalability. As your need for more storage space for large medical image files grows, you’ll have a provider with the space to allow you that expansion. Some providers limit their plans, so be mindful of situations that make you pay for more storage than you’ll ever need.
Safe archiving has its merits, to be sure, but storage without unfettered access is not a situation you want to find yourself in. Pick a provider that offers true vendor neutral archiving capabilities and the means through which you can access and share data whenever you want and with whomever you want, regardless of what system they’re running.
The best vendors will ensure immediate access to stored records, offer multiple access channels for authorized users and offer you the ability to go about business as usual, even when an IT disaster strikes. They should use multiple Level IV data centers and guarantee 99.99 percent uptime.
OffSite Image Management, Inc., knows the importance of a perfectly executed business continuity plan. We have solutions that are a perfect match for providers just like you who need the best quality disaster recovery plans but without all the extra cost. Contact us today and we’ll tell you how you’ll save money and improve your quality of care.