The Increasing Need for Healthcare IT Solutions

1
The Increasing Need for Healthcare IT Solutions
2
Healthcare IT Solutions

• Medical advances and new technologies require
  healthcare IT solutions to keep pace.
• Now more than ever, healthcare organizations
  require a safe and secure environment, 100
  guaranteed systems availability and compliance
  with regulatory acts such as HIPPA.
•  

3
Healthcare IT Solutions

• As medical advances in patient treatments emerge,
  healthcare IT needs to keep pace. IT solutions
  must deliver readily available and secure
  electronic medical data, such as Electronic
  Medical Records (EMRs) and Picture Archiving and
  Communication Systems (PACS). Innovative
  treatment options, like Telemedicine, require
  reliable and robust IT infrastructures.
• And the overall IT environment must comply with
  stringent government regulations.
•  
• Now more than ever, healthcare organizations
  require secure, reliable and compliant IT
  solutions to deliver quality patient care.
•  

3
4
A Safe Healthcare IT Environment

• Compromised security can significantly interfere
  with healthcares ability to care for patients.
  Healthcare IT threats pop up everywhere. Computer
  viruses, hackers, human error and disgruntled
  employees can be a significant threat to mission
  critical applications and patient data.
  Therefore, rock-solid physical and network
  security becomes a top priority for all data
  center service providers. 
• SAS 70 Type II audited processes ensure a
  providers operational procedures, security, and
  controls are working effectively to safeguard and
  protect your data and equipment. A safe and
  secure healthcare IT network contributes to
  quality patient care, enhanced productivity,
  increased mobile point of care access to
  information and reduced costs.  
• In addition, healthcare IT solutions require 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, and various alarms and
  sensors tied to fire and police departments.
•  

4
5
Reliable Healthcare IT Solutions

•  
• With life or death decisions at stake, downtime
  is not an option. Your medical and healthcare IT
  infrastructure must guarantee 100 availability.
  In addition to guaranteed uptime, service level
  agreement should cover key elements and service
  metrics like power, temperature and network
  availability.
•  
• Healthcare IT solutions should eliminate any
  worry about your critical healthcare IT
  infrastructure experiencing issues or downtime.
  Redundancy and reliability built into data center
  operations, including critical power and cooling
  infrastructure, can ensure fast, easy access to
  patient information for your healthcare
  personnel.
•  

5
6
Reliable Healthcare IT Solutions

• Healthcare providers must maintain uptime even in
  the event of a disaster. Data center solutions
  need to provide hospitals, physicians and other
  healthcare providers with cost efficient disaster
  recovery facilities, systems and infrastructure.
  In addition, your critical data must be backed-up
  and safe.
•  
• Finally, your healthcare business must adapt
  quickly to changing technologies, regulatory
  requirements and patient needs. Data center
  solutions must provide scalable infrastructures
  to easily address any changes in your operations.
  
•  

6
7
The Challenges of Regulatory Compliance

• Healthcare providers are challenged with
  conforming to legislation and guidelines that
  govern the security and confidentiality of stored
  information. The Health Insurance and
  Portability Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the
  Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation
  Commission (EHNAC) mandate the safeguarding of
  Protected Health Information (PHI). Information
  breaches can result in millions of dollars of
  lost business, penalties and fines.
•  
• IT shares the responsibility for HIPAA protection
  of all medical electronic records and patient
  information. With the recent HIPAA enforcement
  actions, its becoming increasingly important
  that health care IT operates in a secure, audited
  data center.
•  

7
8
The Challenges of Regulatory Compliance

• The HIPAA Security Rule applies to all health
  plans, health care clearinghouses, and to any
  health care provider who transmits health
  information in electronic form. The following is
  a more specific list of who needs to be HIPAA
  compliant 
• Covered health care providers (hospitals,
  clinics, regional health services, individual
  medical practitioners) that carry out
  transactions in electronic form
• Health care clearinghouses
• Health plans (including insurers, HMOs, Medicaid,
  Medicare prescription drug card sponsors,
  flexible spending accounts, public health
  authority, in addition to employers, schools or
  universities that collect, store or transmit PHI,
  or electronically protected health information,
  to enroll employees or students in health plans)
• Their business associates (including private
  sector vendors and third-party administrators)
•  
•  

8
9
The Challenges of Regulatory Compliance
Many healthcare organizations struggle with IT
issues related to security, reliability and
compliance. They strive to ensure their IT
infrastructure is able to support all of their
healthcare applications. Your healthcare IT
solution should combine extensive clinical best
practice knowledge with innovation, business
sense, technological expertise and a thorough
knowledge of the healthcare industry to help
optimize your patient services.    
10
About the Author

• Michael Duckett is President of CoreLink Data
  Centers, a leading provider of data center
  hosting and managed services solutions in
  Chicago, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Seattle. For more
  information about healthcare IT solutions, visit
  http//www.corelink.com/medical-and-healthcare-it-
  solutions.htm today.
•  

10