6 Ways Salesforce Data Backup Tools Protect Healthcare Data
Data backup tools provide a multi-pronged approach to protecting sensitive healthcare data and maintaining a healthy Salesforce environment.
Why It Matters: Healthcare companies are trusted with their patients’ most sensitive information. This trust can be shattered if these data sets are not properly protected.
- Healthcare data is a major target for cybercriminals because these organizations often store social security numbers, financial information, medical records, names, and addresses.
- Along with breaking consumer trust, compliance with applicable data security regulations can break down if sensitive data becomes corrupted, exposed, or compromised.
Here are six ways Salesforce data backup tools help healthcare companies protect their sensitive data.
- Automates Daily Backups
- Prioritizes Data Restoration
- Preserves Metadata
- Ensures HIPAA Compliance
- Reduces Scope of Backups
- Provides Ransomware Protection
1. Automates Daily Backups
The most apparent and essential function of a Salesforce data backup tool is to create and maintain contemporary backups of critical system data. These processes need to be consistent, which is why automation is critical to properly address this concern.
Automated data backup tools can be programmed and configured to take recurring snapshots at predetermined intervals to ensure you always have a contemporary backup.
Recent snapshots will be a lifesaver should a healthcare company experience a data outage.
2. Prioritizes Data Restoration
When it comes to recovering from a data outage, control is the difference between haphazardly flipping switches and taking an intentional approach.
Data backup and recovery tools enable users to choose which data sets to prioritize when recovering to ensure the most critical aspects of a platform come back online quickly.
Choose between incremental and complete data restore functionality to best suit your situation and your needs in the moment.
3. Preserves Metadata
There are numerous types of data that need to be restored to bring an IT system back online after an outage. A major aspect of this that needs to be addressed is the network’s metadata.
Metadata must be preserved, backed up, and restored just like other data sets to ensure functionality is consistent when the system is back online.
Strict control of this metadata will not only make it easier for users after a recovery, but it will also help organizations maintain compliance.
4. Ensures HIPAA Compliance
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) sets strict guidelines for the protection and proper handling of patient health information (PHI).
Salesforce data backup tools offer crucial functionality to adhere to these regulations, including encryption, audit trails, and disaster recovery planning.
Not only do these functions serve to keep an organization in compliance with HIPAA, but they also provide critical assistance to properly protect patient data.
5. Reduces the Scope of Backups
Salesforce is likely your largest container of data. Large sets of data are more time-consuming and more expensive to back up.
Data archiving reduces the amount of data in a live environment, reducing storage costs and accelerating backup processes without losing access to the archived data.
This is another critical process offered by a comprehensive Salesforce data backup tool.
6. Provides Ransomware Protection
Ransomware is quickly becoming the most well-known type of cyberattack. This is when an attacker gains control of an organization’s data and demands to be paid a fee to allow them to access their own data.
By regularly backing up data and storing data in secure locations, backup tools provide an additional layer of defense against ransomware attacks that target healthcare data.
Salesforce data backup tools provide multiple benefits across various aspects of a total data security strategy. It’s irreplaceable role in data protection can be seen in both the maintenance and security of critical system data—making it a must-have for healthcare companies.
Next Step…
A comprehensive approach to data protection and governance requires the usage of multiple tools. This is the only way you can safeguard the health of your data from potential threats.
Check out our infographic with 8 Tips for Protecting Your Salesforce Environment with Data Management Tools to learn how these tools expand the protections seen through Salesforce data backup tools.
FAQs
Why do healthcare companies need to pay such close attention to protecting their data?
Healthcare companies handle their patients’ most sensitive information. This includes data regarding their health status, but it also includes personal identifiable information (PII) and financial data. All of these data sets are highly prized by cybercriminals, which makes the healthcare industry one of the most targeted industries in the world for cybercrime. Failing to protect this data can lead to extremely negative consequences for patients and compliance failures for the organization itself. It’s in the organization’s best interest to implement multiple layers of security to protect this data as much as possible.
How frequently should healthcare organizations back up their Salesforce data?
The frequency of backups snapshots will vary by each organization. However, there are some best practices that can guide healthcare organizations when establishing their data backup schedule. At a minimum, healthcare organizations should back up their Salesforce data once every day to ensure that critical patient information and other essential records are consistently protected. However, depending on the organization’s size, data volume, and regulatory requirements, more frequent backups may be necessary to minimize potential data loss in the event of a system failure, cyberattack, or accidental deletion. Regular, automated backups ensure that healthcare providers remain compliant with industry regulations like HIPAA while safeguarding patient data.
What other tools besides a data backup tool will help protect healthcare data?
Cyberattacks like ransomware are the most feared and, therefore, well-known threats to healthcare data, but they aren’t the only circumstance that can lead to data loss events. Something as simple as an accidental deletion can have disastrous effects on a healthcare IT system. An automated policy scanner can be used to scan the organization’s network for proper permission settings to ensure sensitive data is not overexposed. It’s also important for organizations to ensure the applications and updates that come through their DevOps pipeline don’t introduce bugs and errors into the system. A static code analysis tool and multiple layers of testing in a CI/CD pipeline will flag these errors before deployment to ensure each release is strong and stable.
