4 Information Technology Problems In The Healthcare Industry

4 Information Technology Problems In The Healthcare Industry
4 Information Technology Problems In The Healthcare Industry

What are some information technology problems in the healthcare industry?

  1. Increasing need for data storage
  2. Vulnerabilities to ransomware
  3. Risk of data loss
  4. Telemedicine and BYOD

With the advancement of technology, the medical field has grown by leaps and bounds. But despite that, there are still information technology problems that the healthcare industry continues to face. Medical devices are still exposed to vulnerabilities, there is a growing need for long-term retention of patient records, and many others. This article discusses these problems and the best ways to mitigate them. Read on.

Increasing Need For Data Storage

Increasing Need For Data Storage

Over time, healthcare facilities accumulate an increasing amount of files in their system. With higher-quality laboratory imaging files, data from medical devices, and a growing collection of patient records, the need for larger storage capacities is vital.

But the main challenge for most healthcare facilities is how to quickly scale up without exorbitant price requirements. Most hospitals utilize on-premise data storage but the cost of getting physical servers can be overwhelming. Add to this the cost of maintaining power supply, cooling mechanisms, and more.

That’s why numerous healthcare institutions move towards a more cost-efficient option—cloud storage. This requires less capital investment because organizations can scale up and expand depending on their needs. They can start with a smaller space and gradually increase it as the need for storage grows. Cloud storage solutions also lessen management costs through simplified monitoring and reduce the need for on-premise hardware.

Vulnerabilities To Ransomware

Vulnerabilities To Ransomware

Healthcare data and applications are necessary so healthcare employees can provide proper patient care. Cybercriminals know this, which is why they target these in exchange for ransom. Ransomware is a type of malware that blocks users from accessing data and applications until payment is sent to the criminal. For instance, you might encounter encrypted files and will only be given a decryption key upon settling the ransom.

This type of malware can spread in a system in a variety of ways. Employees could accidentally download it when accessing compromised websites or when clicking on phishing email attachments. These messages try to duplicate legitimate organizations, so users might click on them without checking or verifying their authenticity.

To combat this problem, it is vital to train healthcare employees on how to avoid malicious sites and files. Other than that, IT security measures are also critical in order to detect and isolate suspicious files.

For example, anti-ransomware solutions like Deep Discovery Email Inspector from Trend Micro help detect ransomware from malicious email. Detection is done at the entry point so that the attacks can be blocked before they can even begin. This is made possible through custom sandboxing and other techniques to facilitate the blocking or isolation of such emails.

Another challenge in the healthcare industry is the vulnerability of operational technology (OT) systems and devices — such as CT scans and ultrasound machines — to threats. Since patient outcomes heavily depend on these devices, a disruption could be problematic. Malware could enter the devices and compromise the facility’s computer systems. Fortunately, Trend Micro’s OT solution, the TXOne, can help protect these machine’s entry points from any such threats that can hamper their functionality without downtimes.

Risk Of Data Loss

Risk Of Data Loss

Because data is crucial to healthcare facilities, many take steps to prevent data loss. But this could still happen due to human error, computer viruses, and hardware destruction. This could affect patient care and lead to downtime. Data loss could also affect the reputation of an organization and trigger legal action from patients.

This is why aside from having additional storage, having backups of important files and data is necessary. Recovering lost data can be expensive, time-consuming, and impossible to completely do. But with a backup, files and applications can be restored faster for smooth continuation of operations.

In some cases, however, criminals also target backups. Fortunately, solutions like Unitrends doesn’t just offer backups, but also ransomware detection and recovery. Backup data is stored in an immutable format, which means that it can’t be accessed by ransomware. This way, it remains safe and ready for recovery. Aside from that, Unitrends also utilizes artificial intelligence to analyze ransomware infections during every backup.

Telemedicine And BYOD

Telemedicine And BYOD

Gone are the days when pagers were the main communication device for healthcare workers. Today, smartphones are the gadget of choice to interact with team members, streamline workflows, and access patient information. By allowing medical workers to use their own devices, healthcare facilities can enjoy huge savings while benefiting from increased work efficiency.

With the pandemic not ending anytime soon, outpatients and physicians can have virtual consultations too. This means that health workers need to have access to their facilities’ electronic health records remotely. This way, they can document e-visits properly and provide continuous care for their patients.

One of the best ways to make telemedicine possible is through the power of cloud computing. This allows health workers to access applications and files that can make work from remote locations possible. With cloud security solutions available, healthcare organizations could secure endpoint devices so physicians can work efficiently whether they’re at the hospital or at home.

A reliable way of accessing the cloud is by using Citrix Virtual Apps. With this, doctors can do work on their tablets while on their rounds and access work from their computers at home. From getting patient information, collaborating with other doctors and patients, and providing patient care anytime — health care workers can do all of these remotely, on the field, or at the hospital. These can all be achieved with regulatory compliance and meeting all HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability Accountability Act) standards.

Key Takeaway

With an increase in data, ever-present cyber threats, risk of data loss, BYOD protocols, and telemedicine on the rise, the need for advanced IT solutions is vital for the healthcare industry. These can help organizations reduce the risk of downtime and provide high-quality care for their patients.

If you want to solve these information technology problems in the healthcare industry, CT Link can help you! You can send a message here today so we can assist you in choosing an IT solution that is fit for your needs.

Prevent data loss from remote endpoints and SaaS apps with Unitrends Cloud Backup

Prevent data loss from remote endpoints and SaaS apps with Unitrends Cloud Backup

Working from home is now the norm when it comes to business. However, this now makes data loss more common as devices are now outside your network perimeter. Traditional backup solutions require your devices to be connected to your network for it to backup your files, so for every day those endpoints are not in the network, the risk of losing data becomes higher.

This is where a Unitrends Cloud Backup can help. Through a quick and easy download of the backup agent, you can immediately start protecting your data outside your network from accidental deletion or unsuspected data corruption.

Addressing the issues of bandwidth

In the Philippines, connectivity reliability and speed are the major factor why most companies don’t see cloud as a viable option for business operations. This is a concern for cloud backup due to the heavy initial upload that is needed to create the first backup that needs to maintained (succeeding backups are just small updates to the initial backup which usually are small uploads).

Unitrends Cloud Backup navigates this problem by allowing users to gradually upload their important file to lessen the amount of initial size of the upload. From there, they can prioritize which are the important files that need to be backed up and slowly create the bigger file snapshot to be maintained. The bandwidth consumption can also be controlled by the admin so that bandwidth usage of the solution does not interrupt the business operations of the end user and can even be automated to start at a less intrusive time.

Importance of SaaS Backup

SaaS applications such as Office 365 have grown in popularity since the pandemic started. They helped many to collaborate with colleagues remotely and served as a platform to share their important data. However, many are not aware that data in the cloud are not exempt from the dangers of data loss. According to Unitrends research, over 75% of SaaS applications experience data loss every year. These data losses can be attributed to either intentional or unauthorized deletion and corruption of files.

Creating a separate backup of files with Unitrends Cloud Backup can help mitigate this risk while giving your company a flexible way to recover the data on demand, saving you from incurring loss of productivity time and potential financial loss.

If you are interested in learning more about Unitrends Cloud Backup, you can contact us by filling out the form below and we will contact you as soon as we can!

Recovery Failure: Spotting What Went Wrong

Recovery Failure: Spotting What Went Wrong

Everyone knows that backup is critical to a business’ operations to ensure that everything keeps going in a case of an unforeseen disaster. However, many businesses do not have backups until a disaster strikes, and for those who do have their backups, they can sometimes fall into a false sense of security.

One good example of this would be from a customer of Unitrends, large entertainment complex’s IT department (name is withheld for the reputation of the client).

Background

The IT division was responsible for multiple critical business operations which include the SQL Server databases, file shares, and customer loyalty systems. All of which were based on an on-premise data center. They ensured that they used best practices to protect the apps and data while also ensuring they had security up such as firewalls and a virus scanner. They also made sure to keep employees who had access to the corporate network aware of risky actions on the internet through training.

They were using Veeam to back up their primary data center while storing their backups locally and replicating to a remote site on a separate building on the property. All of this done through the corporate WAN. They also made sure to backup and test regularly to ensure that they could recover in the case of an unforeseen disaster.

However, even with all this precautions in place, there came a day when departments across the organizations contacted them saying that they could not access their applications. They could not find the problem until they saw that ransomware had started popping up on their screens.

No matter how much you train someone, as humans we are prone to errors. Someone clicked a link and infected the network. What made the situation worse, the ransomware actively sought the backup and immediately infected it as well.

Avoiding this scenario

So, what can you do to ensure that your backup stays safe?  Below are a few suggestions that can help your company prepare:

Phishing simulation – You must continuously educate your employees that they and the business is constantly under attack. Many companies are turning to products to educate employees by conducting simulated phishing attacks and security awareness training. Consider a product such as Bullphish ID by ID Agent.

Deploy Linux-based backup appliances – To avoid this and other Windows ransomware issues Unitrends backup and recovery appliances are delivered in hardened Linux.

Utilize cloud storage – Get your backups way offsite and physically disconnected from your production environment with Unitrends Cloud.

To learn more about Data Protection or Unitrends Solutions, you can contact us at 8893-9515 and we would be happy to answer your inquiries!

Five Data Protection Requirements in Healthcare that Unitrends can Help you Solve

Five Data Protection Requirements in Healthcare that Unitrends can Help you Solve

When it comes to business continuity, the healthcare industry faces many unique requirements and challenges.  With the need of 24 hours, 7 days a week and 365 days availability, and the need to safeguard the content of their electronic health records (EHRs), it can be a hard task to fulfill while still keeping within a reasonable budget.

This is where Unitrends can help.  Below are a few unique requirements that the healthcare industry faces and how the Unitrends solution meets to solve them.

  1. Uptime Requirements

When it comes to recovery time objectives (RTO), most industries have them in hours as they have more time to work with.  This doesn’t follow for the healthcare industry as they need their RTOs in a matter of seconds or minutes.

Unitrends Instant Recovery can failover applications in literally seconds. Unitrends Recovery Assurance delivers automated recovery testing, site and application failover, ransomware detection, and disaster recovery compliance, both locally and in the Unitrends Cloud.

  1. Highly Targeted by Ransomware

Due to the nature of healthcare, data of patients are critical for the business to function.  Ransomware criminals are aware of this and that is why the industry is a prime target.

Unitrends products can do security scans against your production applications – but using your backup data instead. It can spin up your applications in a specific order, isolate them from production, execute security tests, and automate reports and alerts immediately upon detection of ransomware

  1. Highly Regulated

For companies that need to work with the Protected Health Information (PHI) must ensure that all the required physical, network, and process security measures are in place, well documented and strictly followed.  This is required by HIPAA.

Unitrends offers a portfolio of 15 all-in-one enterprise physical appliances that are pre-loaded and pre-tuned with powerful software that not only covers on-premises backup but also long-term retention and disaster recovery in the HIPAA compliant Unitrends Cloud.

  1. Must Control Highly Proprietary Data

Healthcare IT must know where their physical data is located at all times of the lifecycle as well as control who can access it.

Unitrends Recovery Series and Unitrends Backup software can replicate data locally, to a remote site or to the HIPAA-compliant Unitrends Cloud. From any of those locations data can be stored for long term retention and / or used for disaster recovery purposes.

  1. Support Large Numbers of Non-computer Savvy Users

Usually, the general staff of healthcare are considered to be beginners or illiterate when it comes to new IT related technologies that have come out in the recent years.  This makes them very prone to mistakes which in turn can keep their IT counterparts quite busy.

With a common and intuitive user interface across all products, even untrained IT staff can easily find individual files in backups. A few clicks and the entire recovery process, from login to file restoration usually takes less than 5 minutes.


To learn more about Unitrends, you may contact us at 8893-9515 and we would be happy to help you!

Unitrends backup and recovery products is a “game changer” against Ransomware

Unitrends backup and recovery products is a “game changer” against Ransomware

With the threat of ransomware on the rise, organizations have been further increasing their IT security to makes sure that they are prepared for it. However, no matter how well you prepare you can never guarantee that no threats will ever pass through. This is where backup solutions such as Unitrends come in. Updates such as ransomware detection for both Unitrends Recovery Series physical appliances and Unitrends Backup virtual appliances can help determine the probability that ransomware is operating within your server workstation or desktop. They even alert you when it does detect ransomware so you may immediately restore your files from your last legitimate recovery point.

The Unitrends backup ‘game changer’

Richard Malewicz, CIO of Livingston County, Mich., has been a user of Unitrends Recovery RC936S and Unitrends Cloud since January 2016, and he called the ransomware detection a “game changer.”

“[Unitrends has] brought forth a functionality and capability to the data backup market in such a particular way where it did not exist previously,” Malewicz wrote in an email interview.

“It’s often said that a data backup system is the last line of defense in a ransomware attack, but in actuality, a traditional backup system isn’t defensive at all. When you restore data from a backup system after a ransomware attack, it’s an indication the enterprise’s cyberdefenses have failed. It is merely a risk management contingency operation at that point.”

An estimation of around 4,000 ransomware attacks on average per day in 2016 (by the U.S. government), a big jump from 2015 where 1,000 attacks per day were estimated on average.

“[Ransomware detection] will be a feature that continues to evolve and improve with the product,” Brady said.

To learn more about Unitrends, visit our product page Here!

Data Protection

Data has become the centerpiece of any organization.  It is the driving force in which they base major decisions and even day to day operations.  This is why safeguarding such important information has become key in a successful business.  However, securing data and protecting data are two different agendas.  Data protection is focused more on safeguarding your data from compromise, corruption or loss rather than focusing on outside threats.  CT Link Systems, Inc. specializes in the following data protection solutions: Clustering and Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR).

With clustering, CT Link can help you minimize the downtime and service interruptions of your production infrastructure.  We are able to accomplish this by implementing a high availability clustering solution which uses two servers to act as an active one while the other as a passive server.  The passive server is a clone of the active server and will automatically be used upon the failure of the active server.

Through Business Continuity, CT Link can guide you through the steps in which you can take to ensure your data is well archived and retain-able using the right backup solution.  We are able to provide you with two types of backup solutions, either on-premise or on the cloud.  With this flexibility, we are able to help tailor fit your solution to better fit the need and budget of your business.  In disaster recovery, we can help  your business by setting up an offsite backup of all your essential data and configurations which can be used in restoring your system upon an unforeseen data loss to your on-premise infrastructure.