Beefing up your storage networks: a solution for disaster recovery

Redundancy of all technologies involved in securing, accounting, transporting, authenticating and authorizing access to patient record data is vital to ensuring against practices and procedures that might be construed as HIPAA violations or threats to patient well-being. This is particularly notable in data storage technologies, where it is critical to store multiple, redundant, synchronized copies of the electronic patient record, including all radiological imagery in all modalities, to prevent a HIPAA-related compliance issue from being raised. This involves constructing storage networks that are simple to maintain, yet have sufficient flexibility and resiliency of design to ensure future growth and increasing disaster tolerance without affecting radiological operations or patient record data access at any time, i.e., a zero-disruption storage architecture. In terms of time, the optimal set of technologies to create a zero-time recovery window involve geographically dispersed computing and storage facilities, interconnected by several redundant but logically and physically separate networks. In this architecture, patient record data is kept in multiple locations via synchronous mirroring or replication techniques, assuring realtime updating of all instances of the patient record. In addition, zero-time recovery mandates the use of online magnetic disk technologies in all locations to hold enough patient record data to perform all necessary and sufficient examinations and consultations. Hospitals are finding that using networked storage technology from vendors who have pre-qualified their technology with existing healthcare imaging applications creates secure, highly available access to data. Other facets to consider for selecting an optimal solution for radiology data storage and disaster recovery include choosing a solution that is standards-based, easy to implement and operate, and requires minimal full-time-equivalent (FTE) staff hours. For radiology applications, look for a system that removes complexity from storage management. The current need to meet HIPAA regulations actually creates a positive opportunity for hospitals to re-examine and upgrade their data management procedures to ensure less interaction by FTE staff. Electronic data can be made more secure than paper data, is much faster to retrieve, and can be viewed in multiple locations at the same time. However, these benefits are lost if a healthcare organization implements a cumbersome system that integrates poorly with existing applications and networks, and requires intensive administration.