BioPAK Software Best Practices

 Here are some things that you should consider to ensure that your BioPAK data is secure and recoverable in case of loss due to hardware failure, fire, flood, or theft.

Your patient data should be backed up to a secure off-site location. Today there are quite a few cloud-based solutions that will store your data. Encryption prevents hackers and thieves from reading your data if they somehow get access to it. This is especially important for portable computers vulnerable to theft.

There are many backup and encryption solutions. Here we reference a pair of free solutions available to anyone with the Ultimate or Enterprise versions of Windows Vista or 7, and Pro or Enterprise versions of Windows 8, 8.1, or 10.

You should never use the Windows Home version to store your patient information as it will not meet the minimum requirements for the HIPAA Portability Act.

Solution

• ^{The Dropbox service utilizes the internet to make copies of your files and stores them on one or more remote computers.}

• BitLocker (supported by the above mentioned Windows versions) will encrypt your computer disk to prevent unauthorized access to your data.

Contact your IT consultant for information on using this solution in your office.

Things to Know

What is HIPAA Data Portability?

HIPAA regulations state that you are allowed to move data electronically, but that you are required to encrypt the data.

What is Dropbox?

Dropbox is a cloud storage provider.  Cloud storage involves stashing data on hardware in a remote physical location, which can be accessed from any device via the internet as long as you have your username and password. 

What is Bitlocker?

BitLocker is Microsoft’s easy-to-use, proprietary encryption program for Windows that can encrypt your entire drive as well as help protect against unauthorized changes to your system such as firmware-level malware.