As summer gets into full swing, so too begins the arrival of hurricane season. The Eastern Pacific hurricane season began back in May, and the Atlantic season started shortly after in June. With the the threat of hurricanes comes an increase in the need for a reliable disaster recovery plan, especially for healthcare providers whose traffic grows when disasters hit.
The National Hurricane Center has announced that the Accumulated Cyclone Energy index, a measurement combining the speed, size and duration of storms into one number, is already at a record high for June, standing at about six times the average for so early in the season. The Eastern Pacific region is already seeing the effects, with two Category 4 hurricanes having hit land so far.
Hurricanes and tropical storms can cause intense damage in areas miles outside their direct path, making it important to implement a disaster recovery plan even for organizations that aren't in traditional storm territory. When Hurricane Sandy hit last year, 24 states were impacted and organizations as far inland as West Virginia experienced flooding and power outages, according to reporting by MSPmentor contributor Matt Miller.
During a storm, emergency rooms and facilities offering long-term care still have to be able to access patient medical records. One way to achieve continuity of operations even during a hurricane is to implement a cloud-based disaster recovery plan. A recent survey on healthcare cloud use by HIMSS Analytics found that an increasing number of health organizations are doing just that. According to the report, approximately 35 percent of providers use the cloud for backing up data and disaster recovery, and another 31 percent plan to adopt a cloud-based solution soon.
Maintain data accessibility with FoIP
While hurricanes and other natural disasters can cause major data accessibility issues, IT systems can go down at any time, and healthcare providers would do well to be prepared for an outage to occur at a moment's notice. Healthcare providers looking to implement a cloud-based disaster recovery plan can start by using a fax-over-IP service. FoIP solutions save all information sent through the service to a secure cloud database and allow records to be available even during an outage because it is stored in the cloud.
Enhance enterprise communication, collaboration and compliance efforts, and hospital disaster planning with a proven FoIP solution from FaxCore. Contact FaxCore today to learn more about their 'Partly-Cloudy' fax solutions.
