EMR backup strategies beyond rotating tapes every day

Your EHR vendor should have a stragegy in place for most, if not all, catastrophies.  Tapes should only be ONE of many LAYERS of protection you have in place.  In addition to daily on-site backup tapes, you should consider off-site tapes as well.  Make sure you encrypt your tapes, just in case one is stolen / lost in transit (so you won't have to invoke / comply with the HITECH public embarrassment/announcement rules).

How about backing up to a NAS routinely (hourly)?  Off-site real-time / near real-time backup to HIPAA-compliant locations via the Internet?  Local and on-site mirrored / hot servers?

Important things when it comes to backups are: 1. Versioning 2. Redundancy 3. Verification and 4. Actual testing / diaster drills.

Have questions? I’m here to help.

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About Reed Tinsley, CPA

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Reed Tinsley, CPA for Physicians