Storage options for the healthcare enterprise

The storage objectives for the healthcare enterprise (HE) are to ensure that information (images and data) are readily available anywhere and at anytime, images and data are secure, and the storage fulfills legal requirements and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). These objectives must be satisfied at a minimum economic cost with respect to personnel, hardware, software, space and telecommunications. Many approaches and storage configurations meet these objectives. Which approach is chosen will depend on the size of the institution, patient population, geographic distribution of the institutions (if more than one), type of facility (such as a hospital, outpatient clinic or private imaging center), and financial investment objectives. The quantity of storage required depends on the characteristics of the modalities, the number of imaging devices and databases, the number and location of imaging sites that make up the HE, the size of the data and image, and the projected procedure volume growth. The only certainty with respect to storage requirements is that they will increase significantly with time. The types of storage required in the HE can be described by their functions: Active storage includes both online and long-term storage. Backup images are temporarily backed up on the limited storage capacity of the modality for several days or longer. Additional copies of the study are made on different media (e.g., disk, DVD or tape), in different locations. The process of backing up data and images must be automated. Effective April 21, 2005, HIPAA requires that all healthcare entities have a disaster recovery plan in effect. This requires that a copy of all medical data be secure, retrievable and maintained in a second location, such that if the primary copy of the data is destroyed or made unavailable, the disaster recovery copy would be available. Planning for the HE archive is critical if the HE is to work productively in an integrated digital environment. The information technology department must be an integral part of planning for the HE archive, which must be located in a secure data center and not under the management of any single clinical department. After the technologies currently available are evaluated, it is imperative that the chosen solution is cost-effective and scalable, and that it will allow the HE to take advantage of future storage and storage management technology.