| Business Backup
- Medical: General Practitioner
The benefits of computerisation at general practitioner
level have brought with them new problems and responsibilities.
Many practitioners will be aware of the problems such
as practitioner software or software interruption network
problems outside of support hours leaving an automation
focused practice struggling with manual recording and
the temporary unavailability of critical information.
The responsibilities are only aparant after more serious
issues such as data loss. Backupanytime have the required
experience providing online backup to general practitioners
and pharmacists and have customised a number of online
backup installation types to assist with the specific
needs these categories.
Before detailing the solutions it is important to list
the different issues at stake here.
Sensitivity of data.
Most companies rightly and often wrongly hold a certain
amount of personal information pertaining to clients.
Practice information regarding patients is of the most
sensitive nature possible. The serious confidentiality
of credit card information in general business pales
to near insignificance when compared to to that of patient
records.
Required retention
Practitioners are aware as to the absolute requirement
to retain and keep safe client and practice information.
This however is a double edged sword as data protection
makes ever more narrow the line between what you absolutely
keep on record and what your should not ever or beyond
varying time or event limits record.
Data types
Depending on the practice software you use, your practice
software records will be of a specific data type or
type range. In addition to this you will likely have
local office software which will also be used to process
and view this information. These applications weather
standard office software such as Microsoft office applications
or less common options such as Sun office will have
their own data types. It is imperative that all relevant
data be backed up and no outside service can offer global
coverage of this without your involvement.
Storage locations
Your practice software data is (or should be) located
in a predetermined store folder and backed up to a separate
system. Non practice general office software may be
stored locally on a per user system basis or on a network
drive. The later is the more favourable option but regardless
of location of general office documents they should
be included in and available for the backup set.
An often overlooked storage location is the location,
permanent or otherwise of the backups themselves. In
the past, it was common for practitioners to carry unencrypted
data with them for backup reasons. The dangers of this
have become more than apparent. Loss of said device
means you have lost your backup and even more seriously
someone else has your patint data. In a genuine data
loss scenario this is detrimental In a theft scenario
it is much worse as the parties who have assumed control
of your trusted patient data have proven their morals
are challenged by the act of theft.
Any data leaving the office electronically should be
encrypted and compressed. No data should leave the office
manually by any method weather tape, removable drive
or usb device.
While the scope of this area is too broad to cover
in a few paragraphs, you can see at this point the seriousness
of practice backup versus general business backup and
the dangers involved in manual process of data backup.
On-line backup (when implemented properly and availed
of through a reputable provider) offers the following.
Automation of a mission critical
task.
All backup systems need to be revisited periodically
to test functionality and check validity of data and
retention. Aside from this, the operation should be
automated to ensure it happens and where possible, remove
human manual process risk from this otherwise relatively
simple equation. On-line backup offers this automation
without taking control or validity checking facilities
from the business.
Encryption of extremely confidential
information.
All data leaving the office (no matter which means of
transport are used) should be encrypted to protect patients
and practice from release of sensitive information.
On-line backup provides this feature and this alone
is a good enough reason for any practice no matter how
small to consider online backup.
Compression of data to reduce data
store size.
While not as critical as encryption above, the compression
offered by online backup should reduce inside and outside
backup media requirements therefore reducing the associated
costs of correct backup procedure media requirements.
Availability of data.
Generally speaking, if a practice has a requirement
to restore, it is safe to assume that some serious incident
has taken place regarding the local computer system.
If backups are managed and stored locally, these issues
may also have affected the availability and condition
of backup data. With online backup, local issues will
not affect your remote store and therefore your online
backup is available regardless of the scale of the local
problems.
Professional backup and restore
support.
On-line backup is generally subscription based. This
payment model makes your custom a long term income source
for the supplier. As such, you can expect (given provider
credibility) “professional hand holding”
for you and your local I.T. support providers when a
restore requirement arises
Backupanytime offer all of the above but with some
crucial beneficial differences. The benefits to Doctors
in general practice of dealing with backupanytime may
be summarised as follows.
Advanced encryption services.
All online backup providers offer some level of encryption.
Backupanytime use bank level encryption. In effect,
if you have used online banking you have used the level
of encryption which backupanytime offer as standard.
In addition, our software is compatible with all industry
wide encryption methods. The main consequence of this
is that if you or your practice software providers have
a preference for a particular type of encryption, it
can be used in conjunction with your online backups.
Also, and most importantly, backupanytime encryption
codes are generated and changed if desired at the client
side. This means that you and only you have access to
your encryption code and data. This differs from the
competition which generally provide the client with
the encryption code meaning that they could access your
data. This difference alone (even though it is one of
many) is a major contributor to our position in the
online backup market.
Confidentiality commitment.
The crucial differences in our encryption system outlined
above allow us to sign off on client confidentiality.
Not alone do we commit to protect your data but we commit
to our promise that even we can not read your data.
The vast majority of providers worldwide do not do this.
Not because they do not want to but because they cant.
Third party software provider joint
support.
Most (hopefully all) providers will offer you support
pertaining to your online backup system. They will not
want to be involved in any dealings with general practice
software providers. We see it as essential to our ability
to provide usable online backup to general practitioners
that we build a knowledge base of the data types and
default data locations of all clients practice software
providers. The result of this is that after your trial
we will assist you to the point of communicating with
your practice software provider and selecting under
their instruction and with your permission the critical
data areas relevant to ensuring the backups of practice
software are correct.
Local and remote backup availability.
One of the few and most serious difficulties with online
backup is online restore speed. If you have a need to
restore large quantities of data, you may have to wait
considerable time for the restore to complete. We at
backupanytime have resolved this issue by providing
a local encrypted data store in addition to the remote
one. This allows you to restore large quantities of
all backed up files in the normal manner but at a much
faster pace. This local store is not required for remote
restore so if your reason for restore involves significant
local system damage, the remote copy is still available.
We also offer a “man in van” service for
emergency restores where local store is not available
and immediate restore is required. There may be an additional
charge relative to cost for this service depending on
requirement. The important thing however is that we
can offer it. Most providers don't
By now you are aware of the following.
- General practitioners are in a very high risk category
with regard to the effect of data loss. This is because
of the sensitivity rating, quantity of and dependency
on the data they use.
- Manual and off-line backup systems rarely reduce
this risk in an effective manner and in some cases
(tape, U.S.B. Drive) actually increase the risk.
- On-line backup is available to anyone with broadband
and offers security, confidentiality and availability.
Backupanytime offer a far greater level of security,
confidentiality and availability of data to general
practitioners than the vast majority of online backup
providers worldwide.
Contact backupanytime in
strict confidence and we will liaise with you and your
practice software providers to offer you total data
protection.
Backupanytime; for responsible people
and their important data.
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