The healthcare industry's Electronic Health Records (EHR) revolution has begun and it will no doubt continue until all medical and health care records and their recording systems become electronic over the course of the next decade or two.
Once records are fully electronic, the days of paper files will be over.
The Healthcare Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) legislation was enacted to assure that all EHR must be adequately protected in various ways.
One such mandate is that disaster EHR recovery planning must be included as part of the any protection plan of patient data.
Unfortunately, the law provides little guidance on how exactly to accomplish that disaster recovery planning.
ERH always have to be available, as well as reliable and accessible, in order to ensure the continuity of patients' care.
Any interruptions of technology or downtime mean that patient care is interrupted and potentially jeopardized.
While it would be great to offer digital technology that cannot fail, that achievement is unrealistic.
A disaster recovery plan is much easier to accomplish.
Along with such a plan, a disaster avoidance plan is equally important.
These are the finishing pieces of any complete EHR protection plan.
Planning for the avoidance of disaster goes a long way to proactively limit loss.
The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) provides information to the association's members on preparing disaster avoidance and disaster recovery plans.
No one can know if some day a natural disaster will disrupt, damage or destroy a healthcare facility, hospital or physician's office.
Floods follow winter snow thaws throughout the Midwest and hurricanes' winds and tidal surges plague coastal regions.
Tornados, fires and vandalism can strike anywhere.
Earthquakes are not limited to the west coast of America.
Any of these disasters can endanger EHR, thus interrupting and potentially endangering patient care.
The very nature of natural disasters is to cause damage and threaten life and property.
At a time when hospitals, healthcare facilities and clinics may be inundated with the injured and ill, damage to the facilities themselves may make their EHR inaccessible.
When computers and other electronic storage systems containing patient data suffer flood, fire and other damages, hiring a company that specializes in the restoration of electronic data is necessary.
Such a company must work on the damaged equipment to retrieve all EHR while still maintaining HIPAA mandates on patient information privacy.
AHIMA strongly recommends having the company sign a contract that details specifics on the ways data is to be recovered, the length of time to be allowed for this to be accomplished and the new form in which the information is to be stored for return to the healthcare facility.
AHIMA has a number of other recommendations for contract provisions, including those for assuring that the retrieval company's employees do not disclose or use any of this confidential information.
Making storage tapes of computer files on a regular basis can make the need for data restoration unnecessary as part of a prevention plan.
As the use of EHR systems becomes more widespread, protecting their security will grow equally more challenging and important.