The Cloud Protects Practices from Mother Nature

Late last week, as Irma devastated Florida’s Atlantic and Gulf coasts, I had the opportunity to speak with one of our medical practices in the area. As I shared my concerns and best wishes with them, they quickly reminded me how valuable it is to have their entire practice’s data securely stored in the cloud—far away from the rain, devastating winds, and storm surge.

With the destruction left in the wake of hurricanes Irma and Harvey, it is wonderful to know that cloud technology is helping people worry less and avoid further damage.

Here are four disasters modern medical practices across the southern U.S. will sidestep in the storm aftermath:

Ruined Servers

Modern medical practices rely on data and servers that are not physically located in their medical offices. Historically, flooding from storms like Katrina and Andrew was a threat to the technology infrastructure at a medical practice. Servers were kept in closets, under desks, and in break rooms prone to flooding. As electricity flickered and surged and water levels increased, damage to physical servers became catastrophic. Even as physicians, office managers, and IT staff backed-up servers to take data home with them, the risks were not mitigated. Reliable internet connectivity and powerful cloud-based practice management systems make ruined servers a thing of the past.

Failed Backups

Gone are the days of a false sense of security in having a tape backup in a safe or an encrypted copy of patient data stored online. Once the wind and rain subsided, medical practices would attempt to restore data—only to find the back-up file was corrupt or didn’t contain all the data. Thankfully, modern medical practices have their data and application files backed-up every few minutes. Rather than being a task that must be completed at the last minute, it’s almost always running in the background. Better still, practices can remain operational until the batteries in the devices or the internet go out, rather than shutting down hours earlier. Today, modern medical practices across Texas, Louisiana, and Florida don’t have to think about backups because their patient data and program files are stored safely in the cloud…

 
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View all Articles by: Melissa Clark, CCS-P