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Article · Apr 8, 2015

Healthcare provider counts on Carbonite to support HIPAA compliance

Healthcare provider counts on Carbonite to support HIPAA compliance

Color illustration of a lock representing secure medical data.

Many people would consider Ken Johnson’s decision to leave a career at Intel to open a medical office and urgent care center risky, but it was important to him that he give back to his community in a way he hadn’t been able to at a large corporation. Johnson co-founded Rose City Urgent Care and Family Practice in 2012 with the goal of providing a unique care experience for all. In addition to acting as President and Chairman of the Board, he handles all of the IT needs for the practice.

Building a practice from the ground up
“Without a doubt, technology was the biggest challenge in the first year of operation,” says Johnson. “Many of our patients are on state insurance, so we don’t have the profit margins that other health care providers have. When I was looking for a backup solution, I needed something that was secure and cost-effective.” 

At first, Johnson used native Microsoft technology to back up his server, but he was backing up the bare minimum of data, and it was hard to use. A former Carbonite Personal user, Johnson decided to check out Carbonite backup plans for business. Once he realized he could back up all of his computers and Windows servers for a flat annual rate while remaining HIPAA compliant, he was sold.

Protecting business data with the cloud
With Carbonite, Johnson backs up all of his mission-critical server information, as well as each provider’s individual computers. Rose City allows practitioners to use their own methodology for treating patients, so there are lots of provider-specific forms, charts and documents that they keep on their computers. Johnson stores the Desktop and My Documents files on the central server, which he then backs up with Carbonite. The redundancy gives him peace of mind.

In the first year of using Carbonite, Johnson’s investment has more than paid for itself. Carbonite allowed him to completely recover from the accidental deletion of a directory, which would have been devastating to the business. He was also able to easily recover data from a drive failure and restore all of the data on some of the practitioners’ computers when they experienced hard drive failure. “The thing I like most about Carbonite is the active backup,” says Johnson. “If something changes, it automatically gets backed up – we can’t wait until 2am to run a backup. It means the difference between losing very important data and actually having it protected so we can access it, which is very important for a small business. If we were to lose something, I can’t imagine how catastrophic it would be!”

Secure data protection for medical offices
Even though Johnson has an electronic medical record system that stores patient records, he needed a secure solution to back up his other business files – things like patient and insurance forms and documents that help him run the business.

“In our business, the number one consideration is security,” says Johnson. “We have to follow HIPAA regulations, and it’s important that our backup provider supports HIPAA compliance. With Carbonite, we know our connection is secure.”

But to Johnson, the best benefit Carbonite offers is that it allows him to focus on the other roles he takes on as he grows his business.

Here are some of his favorite features:

Automatic
Johnson likes that Carbonite backs files up as soon as they are changed. In the busy medical world, his team can’t wait for something to be backed up at 2am.

Secure
Johnson needed a backup provider that allowed him to remain HIPAA compliant. Carbonite meets HIPAA regulations and provides a Business Associate Agreement to its small business customers.

Affordable
Johnson isn’t in the health care business to make money – he’s in it to help people. Carbonite allows him to protect his business at a price that fits his limited technology budget.

Learn more about Carbonite’s small business products.

Author

Megan Wittenberger

PR Manager

Megan Wittenberger is a member of the Corporate Marketing team. She blogs about business continuity for SMBs and SMB best practices.

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