If you own or manage a dental office, you may have had a few conversations with various vendors revolving around cloud storage. While this concept may seem like a radical shift away from the way you do things now, there are definite advantages to storing patient records offsite. However, it’s important to evaluate the risks as well and put your organization in the position of selecting the right vendor.
What the Cloud Does Right
These are the three major cloud computing advantages:
- Large, on-demand storage resources.
Whether you need 15 GB or 150 GB for dental file storage, the cloud can provide what you need, when you need it. Employees and vendors alike can access the data from any device connected to Wi-Fi at any time. - Only charged for the needs you have.
Unlike file cabinets or external servers, you can dynamically add or subtract from storage needed. In fact, the trend in the tech world is to manage these charges down to a microsecond level. This is a stark departure from the hardware, software licensing and network costs associated with offices, even just a few years ago. - If required, you can get your business up and running in a few days.
Because all your client, vendor, insurance and employee information are in the cloud, your organization can be back in business soon after a natural or man-made catastrophe. All you need to do is find a temporarily or permanently space.
Cloud Challenges
Here are three concerns:
HIPPA.
Because dental firms are legally obligated to follow the Health Information Portability and Accounting Act (HIPPA), assurances need to be made by the cloud provider. Currently, most provide limited compliance, so it’s worth the time and effort to determine how patient EHRs are encrypted and if the cloud provider has recently passed government audits.
Understand the difference between public, private and hybrid clouds.
- Public clouds like Google Drive, OneDrive and iCloud are the least secure and least costly. They are not recommended for this application.
- Private clouds are offsite, dedicated servers that require IT professionals, to maintain them. They have the highest level of security but are very expensive.
- Hybrid systems use both public and private offerings. They are usually the most affordable and offer compliance and encryption levels dental firms are comfortable with. Since this solution is a single-client server, it mitigates many of the problems associated with potential regulatory violations.
There’s no guarantee against hacking.
Many dentists and office managers think paper stored onsite can be protected in locked file cabinets. But can it…really? If your practice experiences a fire, flood or break-in, these paper files could be gone within a few moments. And if you were lucky enough to retrieve some of the records, they would be unusable and need to be transcribed into a computer system. Cloud storage, with proper HIPPA compliance and cybersecurity monitoring, can give you the peace of mind that your data is protected.
Jo-Lee Consultants Helps Protect Your Data in the Cloud
Our team can provide cloud consulting, network configuration and cybersecurity monitoring to ensure your data is protected. We keep your office computers up-to-date with the latest software to help keep hackers at bay. Give us a call at 516-313-1692 to learn more about the ways we can help you!