Are These Key Elements of Disaster Recovery Part of Your Hospital Business Continuity Planning?.

Business Continuity Planning Through Cloud-Based Solutions

When it comes to technology, being prepared for evolving solutions is critical. In the healthcare industry, change is a constant, including with technology tied to medical imaging. This became highly apparent as hospitals moved away from film-based systems to electronic images. Picture Archiving and Communications System (PACS) are now becoming overloaded with data. How can business continuity planning evolve to keep up with all the data?

Ultrasounds, 3D, magnetic resonance imaging and computer tomography are just a handful of the technologies being used today that create massive files. Most PACS are being called upon to store these images and offer a safe and efficient repository for the images to be called up later for diagnosis. Unfortunately, downtime in the PACS is creating issues, especially in business continuity planning.

Some healthcare providers are looking for solutions that allow them to store up to four weeks worth of patient images just in case the PACS goes down for a 24 to 48 hour period. It makes sense for business continuity planning strategies to include making recovery of medical data a priority, especially radiology images that were taken in the previous 24 hours. Testing the disaster recovery process is an important step in making sure when things go bad, you’ll be able to keep continuity intact.

What is emerging as a highly trustworthy business continuity planning strategy is offsite cloud storage solutions. With this solution, hospitals do not have to manage every aspect of their data storage solution and they also get a disaster recovery and business continuity solution that keeps their data online regardless of what natural or manmade disasters befall their local systems.

Aside from business continuity planning, advantages also lie in offsite cloud-based imaging storage solutions related to archiving and sharing medial images. Many providers today are being held hostage by their vendors’ proprietary solutions, which bar sharing images with disparate systems. In an age when patients are finding advantages in seeking out healthcare from multiple physicians, it’s imperative that images funnel through from department to department and from one facility to another, without the roadblocks common with proprietary solutions. This is where cloud-based storage can be a huge benefit.

The best offsite vendors are providing business continuity planning and disaster recovery solutions by using the highest rated datacenters, which are classified as Level IV. These are centers that offer the latest advancements in security, both technical and physical, which guarantee a nearly 100 percent uptime. This is the type of continuity that healthcare providers are coming to expect, especially when it comes to gaining access to critical data, like medical imaging.

OffSite Image Management, Inc. is leading the way in bringing the latest technological advancements in business continuity and offsite image management solutions. Our team can assist your organization in making the switch from onsite servers to a more trusted and flexible offsite solution, which is also a cost-saver. Contact us today and let’s discuss your needs.