TECHNOLOGY

One Happy R&B Ditty

by Thomas J. Overberg, O.D.

Doctors from all over the country visit my office to watch my paperless system in action. When they leave, they always ask: "This is really great, but what happens if you ever crash? What if a tornado hits your office and all the work stations end up in Pittsburgh?"

Legitimate questions, and ones my systems administrator, Floyd Collins, solved by building a back-up server with spare parts.

One day Floyd and I sat down and decided that to have a secure system and to protect all patient data, I only needed an "R&B" server—that is, Redundancy and Back-up, and in that order.

Redundancy means I have more than one copy of all data stored in different locations. Of course, it's all stored on my primary server. Each night before we burn all the records on a CD, I push a button and transfer everything onto the hard drive of one of my workstations. This provides me with a second copy of the information. The new CD that I burn is the third copy. I then take the CD home and restore everything on a computer there. This gives me four copies of all patient records—redundancy times four. If the server crashes I won't lose any data.

However, I do need a server to actually keep the office open for business so I can run a network. I need to be able to quickly use the information and to add more patient records. Having a back-up server in case of a crash is the second part of my emergency plan. A good server can cost about $6,000. This is a pricey piece of equipment to have just sitting around in the hope that you'll never need it.

So, Floyd recommended building a back-up server using an old Pentium 133 that my son John had cast off because it was too slow for what he needed at college. It already had a network card, a 4-gigabyte hard drive and modem. The only hardware that I had to purchase was a faster 32X CD drive. The CD allows me to transfer all of the patient records, insurance billing, accounts receivable and scheduling from my back-up CD onto the back-up server.

The software didn't cost me anything. Since I wanted the primary server and the back-up to be interchangeable, we simply loaded the main server software onto the back-up. All I needed to load was Windows NT 4.0, Filemaker Pro and my practice management software using IPX/SPX network protocol. It's that quick and easy.

If a catastrophe every does occur, my recovery is rather straightforward. First, I install the latest CD back-up onto the back-up server. Second, I change the settings so the back-up server will take over the identity of the primary server and function as the primary until the original server is repaired (you will probably need your systems administrator for this). Third, I detach the external network cable form the original server and just plug it into the secondary server. The office gets back to business, all in about two hours.

Now ask yourself this: If a tornado struck your office and your records ended up in downtown Pittsburgh—assuming your practice is not in downtown Pittsburgh—how long would it take you to get back up and running without any loss of data? What type of tune would you be singing?

No wonder R&B makes me sing a happy song. And, it's good for the soul.

Dr. Overberg is in private practice in Fremont, Ohio.