Three Reasons You Should Care About Business Continuity Management and Your Patient Diagnostic Data.

Why It’s Important to Focus on Business Continuity Management

It doesn’t take a total technological meltdown to derail business continuity management – even a small problem can impact the way you access your patient diagnostic data. This is why solidifying your business continuity management processes is so important. If you want to have access to your patient data at all times, think about taking your image management practices offsite.

1. Flexibility

If you are a rural provider, you may not be able to afford the investment in storage hardware and software. Furthermore, you likely don’t have the IT manpower required to manage such systems. However, with a cloud-based business continuity management system in place, providers of all sizes can free up IT labor to manage critical on-site technology and leave the business continuity, storage and access to medical image data up to the cloud-based provider.

Space is virtually unlimited with a cloud-based provider, which means you get the ultimate flexibility possible. This flexibility is appealing for all healthcare professionals especially if you have brought in new radiology equipment, such as 3D, studies from which have massive file sizes and require more space.

2. HIPAA
For providers still using CD burning technology, there is a risk factor that can’t be avoided. CDs get lost, stolen and damaged, which poses a HIPAA violation risk and reduces the quality of care you’re able to provide your patients. Furthermore, it results in repeat exams and higher costs.

Cloud-based image management negates the need for CD burning technology as all images can be shared via a secure URL. And these images aren’t limited to proprietary viewers – even smart phones can pull up jpegs of exams, giving healthcare providers the mobility they’ve long wanted. The secure URL ensures that there is little to no chance of a HIPAA violation related to patient information getting into the wrong hands.

3. Collaboration and Integration
Vendor neutral archives are the foundation of the best cloud-based business continuity management solutions. The very nature of the VNA allows for departments that were once unable to share information the ability to freely access medical images, regardless of the brand of PACS they are using. These very same images can also be shared with departments in other facilities, which is especially important to rural providers that often refer their patients to larger systems for care.

Integration is also a mainstay of VNA technology, and offers providers the ability to interoperate with different EHRs. By creating a centralized repository of medical images, VNAs help to reduce costs associated with migrating images.

OffSite Image Management, Inc. has been a leader in providing business continuity management solutions through offsite, cloud-based technology. Our clients experience a freedom to collaborate, grow along with the size of their medical images, and comply with HIPAA regulations with more confidence than ever. Contact us today and let’s discuss your management needs.