Medical It: Rise Of Medical It Needs And Physical Data Center Security

Medical IT must operate within a secure, regulatory compliant environment to proficiently manage critical data. Downtime is not an option when clinicians need access to Electronic Medical Records (EMRs), Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS), or Telemedicine to make life or death decisions.

An IT infrastructure within a healthcare organization must be designed to deliver continuous uptime, solid security, reliable connectivity and scalability to ensure the best patient care. Any compromise can interfere significantly with quality patient care.

Growth Drivers in Medical IT Outsourcing

Many macro-environmental events are contributing to medical IT development and the growing use of outsourcing within the industry. During the next five years, the healthcare industry will see a dramatic increase in IT outsourcing as a result of these mandates:

-The Health Insurance and Portability Accountability Act (HIPAA)
-The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) --also known as the economic stimulus package
-Government Healthcare Legislation and Reform
-The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH)

These industry catalysts create two major issues for healthcare decision-makers: understanding how to capitalize on the billions of available dollars in government funding, and knowing how to comply with new, stringent government regulations.

According to industry statistics, fewer than 20% of physicians today use electronic health records (EHRs). U.S. government goals target an increase to 90% EHR adoption by physicians and 60% by hospitals within the next few years. Such a significant increase in digital records will require very robust data center operations.

In addition, data security challenges will continue to thwart medical IT operations. Healthcare reform requires more public reporting and increased data sharing. As a result, greater demands will be placed regularly on data flow and security.

Very few hospitals, health systems or physician groups can maintain the required degree of data center security to support the coming increase in digitization. However, an experienced service provider's data center provides higher levels of physical security and disaster recovery than most, if not all, healthcare organizations could manage on their own.

Selecting the Right Data Center Provider

Healthcare organizations will turn to service providers for solutions to reduce risk and increase physical data center security. Outsourcing providers will need to specialize in medical IT and thoroughly understand healthcare data flow and security compliance requirements.

Specifically, healthcare providers should evaluate data center providers using the following criteria:

-Medical IT Knowledge and Experience. You don't want a service provider to learn on the job. With everything at stake, your provider must be well-versed in the healthcare field and have specific customer references.

-Customized Solutions. Just as a thorough understanding of medical IT is critical, so is the provider's ability to tailor solutions to specific medical practice requirements. Your solution should be flexible as well so you can scale your IT operations as your healthcare practice dictates.

-A HIPAA Compliant Data Center. Flexible space, power, cooling and network connectivity solutions are necessary to host your IT infrastructure in top tier facilities.

-SAS 70 Type II Audit. The results of this audit confirm operational procedures, security, and controls are working effectively to safeguard and protect your data and equipment.

-Guaranteed 100% Systems Availability. An experienced medical IT outsourcer will alleviate any concern you may have about critical infrastructure issues or downtime. Built-in redundancy and reliability into all data center operating systems, including critical power and cooling infrastructure, is a must. In addition, your data center provider should include a 100% Data Center Uptime Service Level Agreement (SLA) covering key elements and service metrics like power, temperature and network availability.

-24/7 Multi-Level Systems. A medical IT data center provider should deliver up to five levels of physical and electronic systems working 24/7 to protect your equipment. These systems include around-the-clock monitored closed circuit televisions, onsite support and security teams, biometrics security systems and/or military-grade key cards, as well as various alarms and sensors tied to fire and police departments.

-Disaster Recovery Preparation. Healthcare providers must ensure high availability and maintain uptime even in the event of a disaster. An experienced and qualified outsourcing provider has cost efficient disaster recovery facilities, systems and infrastructure readily available. Disaster recovery solutions must include physical and virtual connectivity through multiple data centers to ensure continuous availability and fast response times.

-Managed Data Solutions. Healthcare providers should be able to choose physical or virtual data storage and back-up solutions. These solutions become especially important as electronic medical records, digital imaging and communication data handling needs grow.

-Managed Security Solutions. A top priority in every data center should be solid physical and network security. You should be able to select from several managed security offerings to safeguard your data and servers from ongoing threats. These services include firewall protection, intrusion detection and prevention, virtual private networks and PCI compliance.

For the reasons outlined earlier, the demand for outsourced data center services will increase over the coming years. An increase in demand will bring a corresponding increase in supply of outsourcing service providers. Therefore, healthcare providers must carefully select a medical IT outsourcing company based primarily on specific experience. Not doing so can result in epic failure on many fronts.