Features - Enterprise Data Insights:

STORAGE MGMT ESSENTIAL TO MEET HIPAA RECOMMENDATIONS

Health care facilities in the United States are currently in a rush to meet the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) deadline for security compliance. Data storage management solutions are likely to play a key role in preparing these facilities to meet the HIPAA recommendations regarding keeping patient record in a timely, secure, and organized manner.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan reveals that revenue in this industry totaled $845.2 million in 2004 for storage hardware solutions, and projects to reach $1,329.6 million in 2008.

The market is already showing a marked increase in IT spending on security system upgrades. Investment in picture archiving and communication systems (PACS), electronic medical records (EMR), and computerized physician order entry (CPOE) solutions expects to be among the top priorities.

"With efficient storage solutions playing the supporting role to clinical information solutions, storage vendors should continue increasing their focus on this area," says Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Natesh Subbarajagupta Kare.

For successful implementation, storage vendors have to coordinate not only with HIPAA consultants, but also with providers of clinical information systems, right from the product development stage. They can also conduct pilot projects at the health care centers to check security compliance.

Most of the demand for high storage requirements expects to come from medical images, patient records, and hospital administration-related data. In fact, the health care data is increasing by more than four times every two years.

Since data types are not homogeneous, integration between digital imaging and communications in medicine (DICOM) and extensible mark-up language (XML) standards plays an important role for successful implementation.

"Health care settings encounter one of the most data-intensive environments, and hence, high scalability at very low costs is anticipated to be a key differentiation factor for storage management solutions," emphasizes Natesh Kare.

Given the capacity and complexity of data management, vendors need to be meticulous about positioning their storage solutions. Marketing and direct sales staff should adopt a 'push' marketing strategy for larger facilities so that they understand the capabilities of enterprise storage solutions in analyzing, estimating, and forecasting patient turnover in each department.

Vendors must also aim for full responsibility in maintaining data integrity and availability. This will enable them to win long-term maintenance contracts and realize more opportunities in health care markets.