People don’t often realize just how much data a dental office holds at any given time. From routine responsibilities like billing and payment information to more complex data that makes up the dental records for each patient, a dentist office must maintain large file sets. The transition from physical paper documents to electronic storage means that dental practices must have robust data backups in place to protect information. Let’s read on to learn more about the importance behind data backup for dental practices.
Heightened Security
Countless companies have undergone severe data breach issues over the last decade. In some cases, these breaches have been massive and have exposed the data of millions of innocent people. Smaller breaches often go undetected or unreported because there are so many happening that they don’t always get recognition.
Dental offices may seem like unlikely targets for a breach, but given the stakes of what a data breach could mean, dental offices must prepare themselves regardless. They have mountains of data that are protected by HIPAA regulations, and exposure of sensitive or personal information could mean major issues for the dental office.
Improving security around the data entrusted to you will give you some more peace of mind. You should be spending your time thinking about the day to day procedures that make your dental practice work as it is supposed to.
Automatic Backup of Data
An automated data backup is the preferred model for keeping your data safe. By performing an automated data backup instead of a manual one done by humans, you can potentially avoid some of the errors that cause data leaks in the first place. SC Magazine reports that more than half of data backup issues are caused by human error:
Human error accounts for 52 percent of the root cause of security breaches, according to a new study from CompTIA, which surveyed individuals from hundreds of companies in the U.S.
An automated data backup system can help you avoid this issue entirely and reduce the risks of human error.
Encrypted Data
One of the fears for some dental offices as they begin to invest in cloud storage is that the data that they store in the cloud will leave that data too vulnerable to the outside public. However, the data backup plans offered to dental offices today do feature encrypted data options that can allow them to use cloud storage safely.
The cloud storage programs of today will encrypt your data at various points along the storage process, such as:
- When the data is first entered into the system
- When the data is transferred from one location to another
- When the data is lying dormant waiting to be used
You can never be too safe with HIPAA-related information or information covered by HIPAA, and that is why the programs of today take no chances and constantly encrypt data.
Encrypted data is increasingly becoming popular for use among various different applications in life. Technology companies have led the way on this, but their advances have now made it easier for dental offices and more to encrypt data and keep things safe.
Legal Compliance
Occasionally, government officials will check on dental offices to ensure that they are complying with regulatory standards. They typically only do an audit like this if they receive a HIPAA complaint from a patient, but they can decide to check on the data storage processes of any location at will.
When you are using automated processes to place data into cloud storage, the level of safety around the information that you must protect is enhanced. You can go back and retrieve the data that you require with ease, and you can feel reasonably confident that you won’t have breaches of your data in the first place.
Keeping information safe and secure will help your practice stay up to date with virtually all of the regulations that could come down from the government. Even as new laws are added, you can safely assume that you will remain in compliance as long as you keep your information protected in the cloud.
Easy Revival
Complete data loss is a dental professional’s worst nightmare. It is not uncommon, and can drastically affect your dental practice if the right safeguards aren’t in place. Fortunately, the automated data storage programs of today make the chances of a disaster far less likely than they were before. Data is constantly being backed up in the system, meaning it can be retrieved once again should it fail for any reason.
In other words, no one has to worry about pressing a wrong button or two and sending the entire system crashing down. There are safeguards in place to protect against that kind of thing these days, and we can all be grateful that we have access to something like this that keeps our data safer than it was before.
In Closing
Having an established data backup plan for your dental office is vital, and there are many ways in which your dental practice can benefit. Whether your office is just starting or you’re looking for ways to improve an already existing practice, Erickson Dental Technologies is here to help. Contact our team of dental IT experts today to learn more about our data backup services.
