How would you estimate the loss of your patient list, treatment plans, invoices and outstanding balances? Could be disastrous, right? The important question is, “do you have a disaster recovery plan?” Procedures and practices for backups, storage and restoration are crucial to your practice.
Today, most companies rely heavily on computers to complete daily tasks. Computers have eliminated virtually all pen and paper requirements and enabled many tasks to be completed in a fraction of the time once required. Before pervasive computer use, a document trail existed in print and was housed in a filing cabinet. Although sensitive to natural disaster, a hardware error was not able to destroy years of data in a millisecond. While computers have enabled practitioners and business owners to improve efficiency, speed and service, they also put the data in jeopardy. Don’t wait for a disaster to strike. Review the backup and storage practices you currently use. Make sure practices ideal for your business are implemented and used.
Data loss can be extremely costly, threatening the livelihood of a business, particularly a small or medium size company. Within the corporate environment, especially during difficult economic times, the difference between survival and closure depends on one’s ability to handle a disaster. At the very least, critical data loss will have a financial impact on companies of all sizes.
While many facilities have backup practices in place, there are plenty of others that will not be able to retrieve vital information in case of data loss. Such losses can result from computer failure, theft, fire, flood, etc. Computer failure can occur from viruses or malware intrusions, power shortages, and hard disk malfunctions/failures.
Data backup is an inexpensive insurance to protect your business against data loss. As the number of backup options available on the market increases the costs associated with these options exponentially decrease.
There are 3 general options for data backup that you can consider:
i) CD/DVD RW disks, ii) External Hard Drive, iii) Off-site
| ADVANTAGES | DISADVANTAGES | |
|---|---|---|
| CD/DVD RW Discs | Inexpensive; Does not require human interaction | May forget to replace disk |
| External Hard Drive | Inexpensive; Does not require human interaction | Not protected against theft or fire |
| Off-site backup | Does not require human interaction; Protected against theft, fire, flood | Will not work if Internet connection is down |
To ensure the data is protected, a combination of two options is highly recommended. For optimal safekeeping, the backup options can be paired as External Drive and Off-site backup or CD/DVD RW Discs and Off-site backup.
Here’s an interesting site showing a video about a company called Data Deposit Box. It offers a continuous file backup service that’s easy to use and secure. For your peace of mind, the company is located in Toronto. Also, please note the link to the Data Deposit Box home page where you can find out how to work with the service.
If you have any questions, require additional information or need assistance selecting a backup option for your office, please do not hesitate to contact us. We’ll be pleased to help you.
