How CalvertHealth Leveraged HCTI’s AWS EHR Resiliency Solution to Maximize Uptime and Shorten Recovery Time
The Client
The Challenge
Nestled in rural Maryland, CalvertHealth finds itself teetering on a tightrope of risk, balancing dependence on technology with the isolation of its location. Adding to this delicate situation are the threats of natural disasters due to its mid-Atlantic home, and the treasure trove of patient data that is a magnet for cyberattacks.
The hospital relied on an electronic health record (EHR) system to grant seamless access to crucial patient information across the health system. However, the data backup took place in-house on servers armed with third-party software. With a staggering Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 48 to 72 hours, the EHR system’s recovery time was far from ideal.
In response to these challenges, the hospital sought out a Disaster Recovery and Information Access Continuity Strategy to comply with their disaster plan. The hospital searched for an EHR resiliency solution partner with goals to reduce the RTO and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) for its primary EHR system.
The Work
CalvertHealth partnered with Healthcare Triangle to leverage their combined EHR and Public Cloud expertise. With Healthcare Triangle’s guidance, CalvertHealth took a giant leap by moving its EHR recovery site to the AWS cloud.
Healthcare Triangle’s HITRUST Certified public cloud powered EHR Data Resiliency solution provided a secure, highly reliable “Luke-Warm” site environment, in essence, the reliability and availability of a “Hot” Site without the duplicate site cost to the hospital.
The hospital has the flexibility to expand and pay for additional resources as required, with a significantly lower initial investment. This way, they only pay for the resources used, rather than investing in twice the production infrastructure.
The hospital harnessed several powerful solutions, such as AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (CloudEndure Disaster Recovery). AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery reduces downtime and data loss, providing prompt and dependable recovery for on-premise and cloud applications, all while using cost-effective storage and minimal computing.
HCTI helped the hospital implement AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery and AWS Backup on nearly 140 servers to simplify and automate data protection across AWS services and hybrid workloads, offering CalvertHealth the ultimate safeguard. Using a clever VPN setup, they managed to replicate the data in the AWS environment. HCTI continues to provide routine EHR resiliency tests and practice runs whenever needed.
Results
HCTI’s EHR Resiliency Solution helped CalvertHealth:
- Reduce disaster RTO by 97%, from 72 hours to under 2 hours
- Increase uptime in the face of disaster or attack
- Achieve little-to-no downtime or frustration
- Reduce potential revenue losses caused by reputation damage
- Create resilience in the EHR system
- Get their system up and running with no up-front costs.
- Improve staff morale and confidence in the system
Client
CalvertHealth
Sector
Healthcare
Technology
Backup and Disaster Recovery
“With HCTI’s DRS Resiliency Solution, we migrated our EHR recovery site to the AWS Cloud. HCTI’s EHR Resiliency Solution not only improved our EHR resilience but also enhanced our data’s accessibility and security.”
Melissa Hall
Chief Nursing Officer, CalvertHealth