By 2016, the internet is firmly rooted in our business culture. Can you imagine paying someone to run your Facebook page in 2006? Probably not—but now the biggest companies have entire departments devoted to this task.

 

EMR software, too, was revolutionary in its time. In the early ’90’s, storing a patient’s information on a computer was unprecedented. You can imagine the response that some companies got when they proposed to make EMR accessible through the web.

 

Today, some EMR solutions exist solely on the web; however, the more versatile software providers are have stayed abreast of the trend by offering users the ability to access their platform both offline and online.

 

For instance, many of the healthcare providers using Practice Perfect aren’t confined to the office, and they regularly find themselves treating patients outside of the clinic. They needed to create a solution that would offers them the best of both worlds.

 

But what happens when you decide to leave one of these online EMR vendors? Will you retain access to their platform? And does your data belong to you, or them?

 

Now more than ever, clinics need to be asking their EMR software vendors about who owns their data, and how secure it is. It’s different when your data only exists on the cloud, and it’s not in your power to perform backups. Instead, you have to rely on your software vendor to do that for you.

 

A recent article on Healthcare IT News made several recommendations for safeguarding your data, such as performing routine backups, creating a recovery plan, and ensuring that all software and networks are up-to-date. But the simple fact is, cloud-based EMR solutions don’t always give you the option of doing these kinds of backups yourself. Instead, you’re left to put your faith in them, and have no say about the security of your data. And this is exactly why we urge you to ask your EMR software providers—who owns your data?

 

Check out the video below to see us discuss what happens to your data if you ever decide to leave:

 

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