As the healthcare industry begins to adopt a digital-first approach in its increasing use of electronic communications to manage business relations, there is a growing need to ensure robust security practices and technology are in place to retain, protect, and monitor sensitive data. Whether concerning the management of business data such as contact information, sales communications, or internal messaging, it is essential that data retention policies and archiving mechanisms are in place to prop up healthcare executives in the regulatory space, and ensure data integrity within the healthcare field.
Where healthcare organizations have started to tackle the conundrum of retaining legacy and capturing newer data, they must look to source a solution that is both secure and allows for data optimization. Firms must search for tools that ensure ease of data accessibility and filter out redundant data sets. It is here that cloud-based archiving makes its move in modernizing and improving operational efficiency for the healthcare industry:
1. Data discovery
A cloud-native archiving solution allows healthcare providers to sort, classify, and index business and sales data as it is placed and retained in an archive. This allows specific information to be easily located within a large volume of data, and further allows users to perform intelligent searches based on advanced classifications in their data sets. This is a critical feature for healthcare corporations who may face investigation or legal inquiry on relatively frequent basis. In comparison to cloud-native solutions, on-premise data archiving systems seldom have advanced classification or search features, making information much harder to find and reducing operational efficiency. Where the healthcare system harbors a vast amount of communication data, eDiscovery with ease is necessary to ensure quick data retrieval following investigation or audit requests.
2. Recovery and control
Modern cloud solutions offer more than just the basic security protection assured by on-prem facilities. Cybersecurity protocols and certifications allow for an extra layer of protection. Generally, cloud archiving systems limit access and control to authorized personnel to ensure sensitive business data does not end up in the wrong hands. This enhanced security setup allows the healthcare industry to meet regulatory requirements while providing superior levels of security and assurance in the event of employees leaving an organization.
3. Data in one place
As healthcare companies transition between different technological and communication solutions, data tends to be siloed and stored in different locations or in different systems. Migrating to a cloud-based archive gives companies an opportunity to consolidate all communication and business data in one place, so all information can be readily found and verified in the event of investigation or audit. This serves to reduce time lost to manual searches for data locations- and ensure that all conversations are fully readable and logically preserved.
4. Reduced cost
Digital transformation and modernization often come paired with additional onboarding costs. However, cloud-based archiving solutions are, in fact, more cost-effective than paper-based storage systems which incur greater retention costs. In addition, it has been proven that a cloud-based archiving system with the same robust security elements and features as an on-premise solution can be up to 30% cheaper.
At Global Relay we also manage the onboarding, training, and maintenance of cloud-based data archive implementation, alleviating companies of this burden and cost of creating dedicated resources for these processes. This is essential as disparate archive strategies can foster a lack of cohesion leading to increased costs from the creation of data silos.
Finding the right vendor to meet your compliance and archiving needs is key for your immediate and longer-term goals. A cloud-based data archiving system improves and enables users in the healthcare industry by simplifying complicated data retrieval processes, and places all your data, legacy and new, in one secure place. The built-in and intelligent features of the Global Relay Archive offering will better your compliance models.
