Electronic medical records provide invaluable DR features

Girish Kumar   Today’s Top Stories    or  Other Disaster Recovery Stories  

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January 09, 2006 (Storage Networking World) -- Hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, fires, electrical outages, terrorism — these disasters can have an immediate and lasting impact on medical practices and their patients.
More and more doctors are realizing that electronic medical records (EMR) optimize operations, reduce costs and improve care, while serving as an invaluable disaster recovery technology.
In fact, the backup and recovery of data from EMR systems can make the difference in saving medical practices and patient lives.
According to government studies, two out of five companies that experience disasters go out of business within five years. If disaster strikes a medical practice, the practice administrator must make sure that business continues in an efficient manner.
Downtime means delayed or inaccessible medical records, which affects patient safety and satisfaction, as well as the practice's reputation. Decreased revenue and productivity are additional negative results.
Another driver: The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) mandates contingency plans for practice disasters including backup, storage and recovery.
Mini case study
Consider for example Dr. Scott Needle, whose pediatrics practice in Bay St. Louis, Miss., was ruined by Hurricane Katrina. The town was devastated.
Needle was forced to move his family north to stay with relatives. Though his offices were destroyed and his patients scattered, he was quickly able to re-establish his practice by accessing patient records through his EMR system. His story contains valuable lessons for medical practitioners.
Needle's EMR system provided access to patient records, histories, prescriptions and lab and other test results. Because of the system's backup, remote storage and recovery capabilities, his data was easily recovered. He recovered the data in his entire EMR system by saving the application on his tablet PC before he evacuated.
With the start of the school year just around the corner, his patients needed their children's medical and immunization records. He was able to access the data for patients who are now scattered across the country.
"I can't imagine if I was still using paper records," says Needle. "The files would have been lost or destroyed in the hurricane."
While the doctor retained his critical medical records, his office and computer hardware were flooded beyond recovery.

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