ABSTRACT

Tertiary medical institutions typically centralize most of their mission-critical clinical data in a central data center, which is a single physical location that is closely monitored for temperature; humidity; and the presence of smoke, fire, or flooding to prevent catastrophic failures. Planning of protection responses may require consideration of unanticipated “normal” events external to the data center with override rules, workaround protocols, and timely and appropriate human interventions. The data center contains production databases for an institution-wide intranet server and systems for institution-wide electronic medical records, pharmacy dispensing, admission/discharge/transfer, and intensive care unit clinical documentation. Planning of protection responses may require consideration of unanticipated “normal” events external to the data center with override rules, workaround protocols, and timely and appropriate human interventions. Without more specific information about the data center environment, it is difficult to make specific recommendations with confidence, but these suggestions illustrate that there are different ways to analyze causes of failure so as to remediate them.