There's no question that any medical practice needs a reliable storage solution—one that can easily store, share, and back-up electronic patient information. There are legal, logistical, and operational reasons for getting your storage under control. While options are plentiful, many are expensive and inappropriate for a smaller office. Network Attached Storage (NAS) is worth considering, not only for its affordability but also for five key business reasons:
1.
"If you do one thing...": Whereas servers can be configured to perform a variety of tasks (web server, file share, applications), NAS is single-minded in its file sharing and storage purpose. As such, typically a NAS unit doesn't even have a keyboard or display but rather is controlled and configured over the network through a browser. Additionally, HP has streamlined the setup of NAS systems, so that you can go from power up to sharing data in 19 minutes.1
2.
Availability is critical: Performance is generally better on a NAS device than on a multipurpose server, whose processing power is shared with other tasks. As offices transition to electronic medical records (EMR), availability—the level at which a system is operational and functional at any given moment—becomes increasingly important. When a digital chart is the only one you have for a patient, you need to be certain that you can pull it up at any time quickly and easily.
3.
User-level file access means security: In conjunction with Active Directory, NAS can map what files every network user can and cannot access on the NAS server. This ensures that certain personnel are not looking at files (i.e. MRIs) that they don't need to see.
4.
Legal considerations: If digital discovery is required during legal proceedings, NAS can quickly retrieve data that can be handed off to attorneys, scarcely disrupting your operations. Encryption can be added to these devices with the addition of a Trusted Platform Module. Adding encryption will prevent the system or its disks from being read, without the encryption key. And of course, using a NAS storage solution means that you're no longer storing important data on your laptop/PC hard drive, which, if lost, could result in fines and penalties.
5.
Simplified, secure back-up: Free software is available to back up to a tape drive, whose tapes can then be carried off-site and stored securely. NAS also has free replication to another office or another Windows server. Two copies of the data can also be kept on the device itself, on two different hard drives, so if one drive fails, your data is still on the second drive. Additionally, client software can be installed on any PC on the network to automate daily backups of the individual PC's data.
HP's NAS Storage products are a simple and cost-effective answer to your storage needs, offering easy set-up, intuitive user interfaces for streamlined configuration, and a dependable, secure storage solution.
Printable version
