Feb 8
2019
What Is Your HIPAA Data Backup Plan?
By Marty Puranik, co-founder and CEO, Atlantic.Net.
The data backup plan was established as a mandatory stage of HIPAA compliance to create, implement and maintain a set of rules and procedures for healthcare organizations to follow when managing the backup and restore requirements of electronic protected health information (ePHI). A data backup plan is part of the HIPAA Security Rule and encompasses wider contingency planning processes that any chosen business associate (BA) or managed service provider (MSP) must be able to demonstrate a compliant backup service capable of backing up and restoring exact copies of healthcare data when required.
The data backup plan should be integrated within a wider contingency plan because it is designed as a failsafe for the protection of patient data. Most MSPs will already be offering disaster recovery technology capable of moving over data and services to a secondary location almost instantaneously. But backups are often considered the last line of defense in the event of a catastrophic system failure. It allows for data restoration capability to be available in the worst possible scenarios.