March 2, 2016 — Philips announced the introduction of a secure data recovery service, built in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS), that rapidly captures and backs up an entire healthcare organization's data repository in the cloud. Specifically tailored to meet the needs of medical data backup, the new storage service helps healthcare enterprises to further secure patient-critical information against local data loss events, ranging from equipment failure to catastrophic events such as earthquake, fire and flood.
Due to the increased use of medical imaging and the emerging use of digital pathology and genomics in the diagnosis and treatment of disease, healthcare organizations need to store and backup ever-increasing amounts of data. A typical hospital's data repository can easily exceed hundreds of terabytes to petabytes and is often fragmented across the facility, making the transfer of data to remote back-up services, even via high-speed leased-line broadband connections, prohibitively time consuming and expensive. Because of these limitations, many healthcare organizations currently rely on local backup servers directly connected to their internal network that do not guarantee recoverability of the data in the event of a catastrophic failure.
Philips' new hybrid storage solution combines the company's expertise in medical data management with AWS' petabyte-scale data transport service, AWS Import/Export Snowball. This combination integrates, manages, encrypts and transfers a hospital's entire data repository to the cloud within days, rather than the weeks or months it would take via a wired network.
Using the Philips data recovery service, a hospital organization's IT department simply plugs an AWS Import/Export Snowball device into its network, invokes the appropriate security features, and transfers the required data to the unit. The device is then physically shipped back and the data transferred to Philips' HealthSuite digital platform, an open cloud-based platform that allows the creation of the next generation of connected health and clinical IT innovations.
Vendor-neutral in terms of the type, format and source of the data, the Philips solution manages security, identity and access, auditing, logging and traceability associated with medical data backup. The goal is to deliver a service that would meet the requirements of the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) by the second half of 2016.
In addition to meeting one-time backup requirements, Philips' HealthSuite data recovery storage service is designed to assist in meeting the ongoing backup needs of healthcare IT departments. One or more of AWS' 50-terabyte data transport devices will remain on-site to provide a local backup, from which all or parts of the data can be quickly recovered. Philips HealthSuite digital platform will provide users with the option of adding powerful data analytics, such as population studies, and sophisticated reporting features. It will also offer them the ability to transfer files to or from the cloud via a secure Philips network connection.
The new HealthSuite recovery data management solution will be on display at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) 2016 annual meeting and exhibition, Feb. 29-March 4 in Las Vegas.
For more information: www.philips.com
March 18, 2024 
