In natural disasters, rural communities and their supporting hospitals face a unique set of challenges in maintaining communications and coordinating care.

To overcome remote locations and outdated  infrastructure, rural providers should consider EHR hosting to secure operations and enhance data integrity.

Living on a Razor-Thin Line: Readiness Gaps Among Rural Providers

Hospitals are the backbone of rural communities, and these providers need confidence in their EHR's ability to support clinicians during a crisis.

For one of our partner hospitals, Mille Lacs Health System (MLHS), an out-of-the-way locale meant that, before working with MEDHOST, the integrity of their servers had to rely on contracted support.

“We were living on a razor-thin line,” said Mike Benda, MLHS IT Director. “It’s hard to get IT staff in a remote place like this. We had this contractor go through our backups daily and make sure the files were synced. He’d go on vacation, and that was it: there was no backup resource for the contractor. It’s one of those things that gnaws at you because you’re just waiting for a boot to drop.”

Although the concept of multi-tenancy, which involves moving data offsite, seemed like a potential solution, bandwidth limitations and a lack of control made Mike hesitant. However, his perspective shifted after being given the opportunity to personally tour MEDHOST's data center and review the robust security measures and backup protocols implemented to safeguard critical information. Impressed by what he saw, Mike made the decision to partner with MEDHOST.

“Multi-tenancy solutions helped us raise service levels and guarantee greater IT budget certainty,” he concluded.

Mike's experience highlights the transformative potential of EHR hosting for rural hospitals. These collaborations hold the promise of significantly enhancing patient data integrity and improving overall operations for facilities across the country.

Read the rest of Mike’s story here.

Securing Rural Patient Data with EHR Hosting

Outsourcing EHR hosting adds an extra layer of disaster protection that local vendors and outmoded systems simply can’t provide.

Benefits of Hosted EHR

• Dedicated system management relieves pressure on internal IT staff, allowing them to focus on critical issues.
• Faster recovery is possible with hosted EHR servers. During a disaster, recovery responsibility lies with the service provider, while internal IT personnel can address other system outages.
• Remote data backup, storage, and resilience prevents loss during disasters. Restoring data from an unaffected source saves time and resources.
• Redundancy in connectivity ensures successful communication even if a rural community's infrastructure is damaged.
• Risk reduction is achieved by shifting patient data security and accessibility responsibilities to an EHR host, reducing on-premise risks.

An EHR host not only saves resources and lowers risk but also provides clear answers to important questions:

• How much space do we have?
• What backup mediums do we use?
• Are our systems up to date?
• How quickly can we recover?
• What actions should we take during downtime?

MEDHOST Direct

A hosted EHR solution offers added protection and sustainability for critical patient data systems. By entrusting EHR disaster response and recovery to an EHR host, rural healthcare providers can better care for those impacted by natural disasters.

MEDHOST Direct is a complete cloud platform solution that can help you with day-to-day technology management while elevating your health IT delivery and HIPAA security capabilities.

Learn more about how MEDHOST Direct can help and support your hospital’s critical IT needs during a disaster. Contact us today at 1.800.383.6278 or email inquiries@medhost.com.