Record Storage, Document Scanning, Tape Rotation, and Online Backup News

New Tape Vault in North Carolina

2009-07-14T08:13:00.001-07:00

DataChambers has announced the addition of a tape vault in Charlotte, NC. The 900-square-foot facility will securly store electronic media. DataChambers provides tape rotation and backup tape storage to business the Charlotte area. The company already operates a media vault in Winston-Salem.Full Story.

DataChambers Adds Facility

2009-05-13T12:40:00.000-07:00

DataChambers of North Carolina has announced plans to open a new data center in Winston-Salem. The data center will be a total of 20,000 square feet and is located 18 feet underground.

Along with data storage DataChambers offers tape storage and document storage.

EHR Funding in the Stimulus Package

2009-03-30T12:17:00.000-07:00

President Obama has given doctors a $19 billion incentive to convert their paper records to digital files. Medical record scanning was marked as a high priority initiative in the $800 billion stimulus package that passed last month.

The president is clearly sending a message to medical practices and hospitals that it is time to convert their paper files to Electronic Medical Records (EMR). It is a priority for President Obama because it will help healthcare providers and insurance companies easily share information about patients.

The government will be providing grants to individual practices to help offset the cost. As news of these grants spreads, we are seeing a dramatic increase in the requests for scanning service.

Over the next few years you are going to see more and more doctors typing on the computer instead of writing on a chart.

"The president is clearly sending a message to medical practices and hospitals that it is time to convert their paper files to Electronic Medical Records (EMR)," says Steve Hastert, president of Record Nations. Record Nations helps medical offices scan their records. "It is a priority for President Obama because it will help healthcare providers and insurance companies easily share information about patients."

The benefit of EMRs is reduced overhead in the healthcare system and a reduction in misdiagnoses. With $600 billion in medical spending the federal government would be the biggest beneficiary of increased efficiencies.

While many leading hospitals have already scanned documents into a digital format, thousands of smaller doctors' offices have not made the switch. Most cite the fact that scanning medical files is a significant expense and the cost is difficult to pass on to patients.

"The government will be providing grants to individual practices to help offset the cost," says Hastert. "As news of these grants spreads, we are seeing a dramatic increase in the requests for scanning service."

The incentives in the plan include $2 billion in grants to individual physicians in the amount of $44,000 to $64,000. This can be used for document scanning and electronic document management systems. Hospitals can qualify for up to $11 million in incentives. The remaining $17 billion is for Medicaid and Medicare payment increases to offices using the system.

The law also establishes penalties for practices that choose not to employ e-health records. In 2014 there will be decreased Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements for practices that have not implemented EMRs.

"Over the next few years you are going to see more and more doctors typing on the computer instead of writing on a chart," predicted Hastert.

Bargain Basement EHR?

2009-03-26T14:39:00.000-07:00

For many doctors the biggest barrier to electronic health records (EHR) is the cost of the software and hardware. The New England Journal of Medicine estimated the cost at $36,000 per physician. Even with the $19 billion in grants from the stimulus package this is hefty chunk of change.

To offer a low cost solution, Wal-Mart has partnered with Dell and eClinicalWorks. The new system priced at $25,000 for the first physician in a practice and $10,000 for each additional doctor. Continuing annual cost is expected to be $4,000 to $6,500 per year for maintenance and support.

If this system gets traction it might have the power to become the standard in an industry looking for a market leader.

Datastore Opens Records Center

2009-03-04T07:50:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to Datastore on the opening of their new Madison Records Center. The 87,000 square foot facility in Sun Prairie Industrial Park includes the latest in security and fire protection.

The new facility will offer records storage, tape vaulting, shredding, and document scanning to businesses throughout Madison.

Information Security During Layoffs

2009-02-27T14:16:00.000-08:00

Recently IT security firm Cyber-Ark did a survey of Wall Street office workers. They found that Fifty eight percent would take private company information if let go by their firm. Sixty two percent said it would be easy to take the information. I could make a comment about how corrupt leaders breed corrupt organizations but I will let others do that. But I will say that every business needs to keep their information secure at all times. Never give access when it isn't needed.

$17 Billion for Records Management

2009-02-20T13:08:00.000-08:00

Part of the $787 billion spending package that was passed last week includes $17 billion in incentives for healthcare providers to adopt electronic health records. However, most of the spending doesn't start until 2011 through 2024. The spending package also includes new privacy provisions for electronic health records. The new provisions ban the sale of health information, require audit trails and encryption technologies.

Don't Count Out Magnetic Tapes

2009-02-16T13:38:00.001-08:00

With all the stories about backup tapes being lost and stolen many people are now asking why they are even being used anymore. Gary Anthes of Computerworld has a great article about why removable magnetic media is not going away anytime soon. What do you think? Does your company plan on moving away from tape rotation? And what are your security procedures?

PDF is the King of Scanning

2009-01-15T11:35:00.000-08:00

In a recent AIIM survey PDF was found to be the overwhelming favorite for the storage of documents. The study found 90% of organizations were using the format for long term storage. Although paper was still the king with 100% of respondents using it; in five years they expect to be only 77%.

89% of companies in the study say they are in the process of scanning documents into PDFs. If you are one of these organizations a scanning service can save a great deal over in house solutions.

Who Need a Secure Offsite Storage Company

2008-11-24T14:31:00.000-08:00

Terry Lynn Porter was recently arrested Mineral Wells in possession of documents containing the personal information for 200 people. It is believed the Porter was planning on using the information to commit identity theft.

The interesting part of the story is where Porter got the documents. They were stolen from a storage locker for Palo Pinto General Hospital. The locker was secured with "a single strand of wire." The hospital never knew that the records had been taken. [full story]

It might be time to call a real record storage company.

IDEA is Launched

2008-09-04T07:32:00.000-07:00

The SEC has announced the successor to the EDGAR system. EDGAR is a 1980's system designed to hold electronic copies of all the forms submitted to the SEC by public companies. After 20 years the system is now showing its age and needed an upgrade.

The new system is call IDEA, Interactive Data Electronic Applications. The new system should make finding and retrieving financial data easier for investors.

Here is the video of the release press conference.

Shred Or Store

2008-08-05T06:45:00.000-07:00

The school board of the Lee County School District are debating whether it makes more sense to shred expired documents or store them. The thinking is that they can simply stack the boxes in warehouses the district currently owns and then save the cost of shredding.

What they fail to understand is that they will still be required to shred them but the cost of a shredding service will only go up. And they will also have added the risk of storing records that are no longer needed.

Data Breaches Up in 2008?

2008-07-22T07:59:00.000-07:00

The Identity Theft Resource Center has a running list of organizations who have data breaches. The first half of 2008 saw 342 data breaches for a rise of 69% over last year. The question is whether this is a result of more strict disclosure laws or worse security.

The breakdown of breaches for this year are 36.8% general business, 21.3% education, 17.0% governments, 14.9% health card and 10% financial institutions.

"Red Flag" Rule Added to FACTA

2008-07-17T08:11:00.000-07:00

The Federal Trade Commission has issued new regulations to the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA) known as the Red Flags Rules. The new rules require financial institutions to create prevention programs to detect and respond to "patterns, practices, or specific activities that could indicate identity theft." The program must be in place by November, 1 2008.

According to the rule a financial institution is defined as banks, savings and loan associations, credit unions, and creditors. Creditors does not include every business that accepts credit cards but does include any business that extends credit. For example, finance companies, automobile dealers, mortgage brokers, utility companies, and telecommunications companies.

Some red flags that covered entities must be monitoring are:

Alerts, notifications, or warnings from a consumer reporting agency
Suspicious documents
Suspicious information
Unusual use of a covered account
Notices from customers, law enforcement authorities, or other businesses

This represents the biggest changes to the FACTA law since it was enacted in 2003

DocuVault Gets New Ownership

2008-07-08T15:32:00.000-07:00

We recently wrote of the acquisition of DocuVault in Denver by Iron Mountain. DocuVault of Delaware Valley has announced that they will be spun from the DocuVault Group, that was purchases by Iron Mountain, into their own company

New CEO at Iron Mountain

2008-06-10T08:23:00.000-07:00

Iron Mountain has announced Bob Brennan is their new CEO. Brennan replaces Richard Reese who held the position of CEO for the last 27 years. Reese is now executive chairman of the board.

It will be interesting to see how the Records Storage giant changes under new leadership after such a long reign by Reese.

Record Storage Health Hazards

2008-06-05T09:49:00.000-07:00

Last November, Susan Leukam suffered fatal injuries when a motorized shelving system accidentally activated and trapped her between shelves. Susan worked in the medical records center for Rice Memorial Hospital.

The hospital has been fined $50,000 by OSHA for safety violations.

This is the first such incident I have ever run across of automated shelves causing serious injuries. If you have heard about others I would love to hear from you in the comments.

Personal Medical Records Storage

2008-05-20T07:59:00.000-07:00

Google launched their long awaited Google Health this week. One of the features is to allow individuals to store their medical records with Google. The idea of online medical records has an appeal but the application has significant security risks.

Every other Google user agreement says that the data is the property of Google. That means they can sell your information and place ads on your records. I don't know about you but I am not so comfortable with a business having this personal information and then using it for marketing.

Iron Mountain Growing in Denver

2008-05-13T15:15:00.000-07:00

Iron Mountain has announced the acquisition of DocuVault of Denver. DocuVault provides records storage, secure shredding and data backup services to the front range of Colorado. DocuVault was the largest privately held records management company in Colorado prior to their sale.

Terms of the deal were not released.

Personal Documents Found in Dumpster

2008-05-09T07:37:00.000-07:00

Cornerstone Fitness recently moved to a new location. It seemed like an upgrade for the business but not everything went smoothly during the move. Several boxes of customer contracts were left in the dumpster. The contracts contained the personal information of their clients.

The gym owners say of the contracts should have been left in a dumpster and they blame the movers for the error. "We hired a professional moving company to take care of it. And to our best knowledge, they moved everything," says Joseph De La Garza, one of the co-owners.

With the number of people who are digging through trash, customer records are not something to be left for chance.

Risks of Data Storage

2008-05-05T09:01:00.000-07:00

Records Managers have long know about the risks of storing data but what is the actually liability. According to a 2007 survey by the Ponemon Institute it is $128 per each customer contact record compromised. The survey was of 35 merchants who had a data breach in the prior year. Add to this that the FTC can refer cases to the Department of Justice for criminal charges or damages.

Data is important for a business but improperly held and used data is closer to toxic waste than a business asset. It is more than enough to keep a records manager up at night.

Here are some practical tips for the part time records manager.

Shedding in Indianapolis

2008-04-30T06:40:00.000-07:00

The Helping Homeless Veterans and Families moved offices this week. The problem is their moving truck wasn't big enough to take all their clients personal information with them. So boxes full of veterans medical information and social security numbers were dumped in the trash.

Luckily the boxes were found by someone who notified Channel 8 instead of using the information for theft. It may be years before a homeless vet discovers his identity has been stolen.

The low cost of a shredding service is worth the protection these veterans deserve.

Shredding in Ohio

2008-04-29T15:54:00.000-07:00

Blue Gas is looking for a shredding service. The problem is that they only started their search after dozens of boxes of their customers and employees personal information was found in the trash. The boxes contained social security numbers and bank information for its clients.

The company tried the "leave it the dumpster and hope no one finds it" policy to document destruction. Business beware, there are a lot of people who are going through your trash.

The only sensible solution is to make shredding easy for everyone and as long as the standard office shredders are slow and jam so easily that means a shredding service.

Medical Records Breach

2008-04-28T09:34:00.000-07:00

The UCLA Medical Center has announced the firing of 13 employees and suspended six others for snooping in the medical records of the hospitals famous clients. Some who had their files opened include Maria Shriver, George Clooney, and Britney Spears. Along with the employees, several physicians also faced disciplinary action for improper accessing of medical records.

The breaches were discovered through an audit of logs which screens staff members for what they view and for how long. Palisades Medical Center in New Jersey had a similar problem and suspended 24 staff members for accessing George Clooney's medical records from there.

Can George Clooney's blood pressure be that interesting?

Record Storage or Document Scanning

2008-01-24T08:11:00.000-08:00

The number one question we get asked is, "can we scan our documents and the shred the paper to save on storage costs?" And unfortunately the answer is, "it depends?" A new ruling from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware seems to support the idea of shredding the paper copies.

In a ruling about bankrupt American Home Mortgage Investment Company the court approved the company shredding an estimated 1.1 million hard-copy loan files when a image of the document existed. The company says this will save $45,000 monthly in storage fees.

This is obviously a very specific ruling but is a sign that images are becoming more widely expected in the legal world.