Helping Healthcare IT Take the Guesswork out of Data Protection

Not only is healthcare one of the world’s most data-intensive industries, but the sensitive nature of that data poses some unique and daunting challenges for healthcare providers. No matter the size of the organization — from single, independent medical practices to large, integrated systems with multiple facilities — providers have stringent requirements for data retention, access, and protection, often set by government regulations.

Health information breaches have serious consequences for both providers and patients.

Health data is a prime target for cybercriminals. Healthcare has been named the industry most vulnerable to data breaches, with hospitals accounting for 30% of all large data breaches. Between remedial actions, legal costs, and lost community trust, compromised health information is expected to cost healthcare institutions up to $6 trillion by the end of 2020. That’s double the $3 trillion figure published in 2017. The data healthcare companies need to protect contain highly regulated Protected Health Information (PHI) relating to a patient’s physical health, and personal information that cyber criminals can use for identity theft.

Stakes are high for organizations that fail to properly protect patient data. Risks could include noncompliance with data security and patient privacy regulations such as HIPAA and GDPR, severe financial penalties and losses, and damage to the reputations of both providers and patients.

The last line of defense is a robust and secure backup solution that can meet the following requirements, while also reducing operational costs:

• The ability to manage and protect all types of data — patient medical and billing records, financial and operating records, research, communications, human resources, and other business information.
• Protection for electronic health records (EHRs) and picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) in compliance with HIPAA and other standards.
• Capability for centralized IT services to manage local backups at remote sites.

The Compass difference for healthcare

Compass®, Cobalt Iron’s enterprise-scale data protection solution, addresses these requirements and many more. Compass takes the pressure off resource-strapped data backup and recovery teams and helps them migrate off costly or redundant legacy solutions.

Here’s how Compass uniquely overcomes the complex challenges of healthcare data protection:

• Healthcare providers are able to focus on improving patient outcomes, rather than managing backups. Compass sets IT teams up for success with a single dashboard to manage the full landscape of data protection.
• A pay-as-you-go SaaS delivery model provides physical, virtual, cloud, and hybrid-cloud options to meet each organization’s unique backup and recovery requirements.
• Compass leverages analytics-driven automation, eliminating the complexity and poor performance of legacy backup solutions spread across remote locations, reducing risk and lowering CAPEX and OPEX in the process. Compass software automates up to 90% of daily administration tasks, freeing backup administrators to focus on higher-value tasks.
• Built into every deployment of Compass, the Cyber Shield security features provide industry-leading ransomware protection. Sensitive patient data is safeguarded through compliance-ready policy management and role-based access.
• Compass was built for multitenant environments. This makes it ideal for healthcare facilities of all sizes looking to eliminate the complexity of providing data protection to their remote hospitals, clinics, and medical practices while maintaining enterprise-class SLA performance.

Learn more about how Compass is the smart, secure, automated choice for your healthcare organization. Download this Case Study on a Compass hospital system deployment.