Many people believe that legacy backups and archives are one and the same. However, they couldn’t be more wrong. Backup systems and archive systems work very differently and serve two distinct purposes, but both are vital to the successful storage of data, especially for health care practices.

Backup Systems

Backup systems should be used as a way to recover lost data. They store copies of data in case of an event that wipes the primary copy of the data from another system. It’s a disaster relief instrument used for data loss or corruption emergencies.

Archive Systems

An archive system is used for long-term storage of data and is not meant to be a data recovery system in an emergency. These are used to store the vast amount of data that health care practices are required to keep for anywhere between seven to 21years. Often, data in archive systems are accessed irregularly, but when it is, it’s usually for something important.

Why you need both

Because not many people are aware of the different purposes between legacy backups and archives, oftentimes archived data is not backed up. And this is a major problem.

Archive systems can be just as prone to disaster as any other IT system, and data loss and system failure of an archive system is big trouble. As mentioned earlier, while data in the archives is not accessed often, when it does need to be accessed, there is usually an important reason; not to mention that retaining data over a length of time is required by federal and state laws. In fact, HIPAA regulations specify major penalties for archived data loss.

That’s why it is vital for health care organizations to not only back up current data that is being used, but archived data from the past as well.

Legacy Backups and Archives – Better Together

This will require extra work and extra storage space, but it is necessary. It also helps to have a kind of organizational format to follow when storing legacy backups and archives. For example, a health care provider might consider storing current patient data on a local drive and older data in the cloud or another longer-term storage medium.

The important thing is to remember to still have copies of the data as well, and to back them up regularly. The older, archived data would not necessarily need to be backed up as often, since it is likely unchanging, but it would still need some kind of backup schedule, to make sure newly archived data is being backed up as well.

As a best practice, this data management should be on an automated schedule. Manual archiving and backing up can be very laborious and is prone to human error. If done manually, schedules could get off, data could accidentally be removed or deleted early, and it would be a tedious job to ask of IT staff.

Overall, the difference between backing up data and archiving data is significant. A health care practice does not need one or the other; it needs both. In order to remain HIPAA-compliant, you need to archive your data. To protect your organization and its clients from data loss, you need to back it up. Both systems are vital to the health of your health care services.

Partner Up

If we still haven’t answered your question by the end of this post, feel free to shoot me a message with any immediate questions you may have. However, stay tuned to this article for updates on more new features and requirements that come along.

No matter what you end up doing with your legacy systems, you must do something. “There are two types of people in this world, those that have lost data, and those that are about to.” Archive those old servers and start saving funds today by losing the need for hardware and software upgrades of those old legacy systems.

-Dan Holleran | 314-471-3409 | dan@pdehealth.com | www.pdehealth.com

PDE Health is an advanced data solutions firm and has developed the CHR Base product. Visit our website to learn more about who we are and what we can do as a good business partner in the healthcare data industry.