Dental Office Disaster Preparedness For Hurricane Irma

Hurricane Irma is going to hit ground and threaten dental offices all up the east coast. When you are done making sure your family and your staff have a safe plan, it’s time to worry about the safety of your dental practice. A flood or severe roof leak can be incredibly damaging to much of the equipment in a dental office. Also, every dental office has a responsibility according to HIPAA to have their patients’ records secure, even in the case of natural disaster.

Here is a list to help you make sure you are prepared for the hurricane before it hits:

Backup, Backup and Backup Again

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Even if you think you have a rock solid backup, now is the time to run a manual backup and then attempt to restore the backup to another location. An untested backup is a very dangerous thing. Many things could be wrong with your backup that you don’t know about if it hasn’t been tested.

Sodium Dental is happy to offer any dentist a Backup Checkup. Just call 800-821-8962 and ask about our disaster backup checkup. We will log into your server remotely, and our expert technicians will go through a check list, making sure that you have at least one secure backup in a secure location far outside the track of the hurricane.

Store It Safe and Dry

Wet Hamamatsu Sensor Water Pour

Your digital X-Ray sensors and intra oral cameras are some of the most expensive and fragile items in your dental office. They do not like humidity and they do not like moisture. This storm is likely to bring both in very large quantities. Even if your office weathers the storm with no serious damage, a roof leak or burst pipe could let water into your office. Much of what’s in your office can be cleaned or recovered if it gets wet, but your $12,000 sensor is unlikely to survive any moisture.

So here is what I suggest:

SentrySafe Fire Safe, Waterproof Fire Resistant Chest, 0.28 Cubic Feet, Medium, CHW20205
by SentrySafe
Link: http://a.co/6ggjeVr

Get yourself a waterproof safe and store your sensors and intra oral cameras in it each night. If possible, please take your safe home each night since the chances of theft and break-ins goes up dramatically during a disaster.

Call us if your sensors are damaged and in need of repair.

Computers and Servers Need to Be Off The Ground

This is a good rule for any office and all the time. Flooding can happen from all kinds of occurrences, and if your computers are on the ground, they will be the first victims.

Syba Steel Computer Stand for ATX Case with Adjustable Width and 4 Caster Wheels
by Syba
Link: http://a.co/iezFA0g

Here is a great and inexpensive computer stand, but if you are pressed for time, simply move your computers from the floor to the counter top.

Bag IT UGLY

Roof leaks are hard on electronics. Go purchase contractors garbage bags from Lowes or Home Depot. Make sure that you bag your expensive monitors and computers before leaving your office.

Unplug the devices from power and then put them under bags. If you leave them plugged in, they may overheat when bagged.

All The HIPAA You Ignored Is Now Imperative

You are supposed to have live encryption on your server. This way if your server is stolen from your office, the thief can not access the protected health information. (If you haven’t done this or don’t know how to do this, our support staff can take care of this quickly for you. Call 800.821.8962 or in this period of weather crisis we will be monitoring our after hours email address at support@sodiumdental.com. Please email us your needs and your contact information and we will get back to you right away.)

You are supposed to have a Disaster Preparedness Plan — you can find example plans on the HHS website, or if you would like professionals to do this for you, we can provide you a customized disaster preparedness plan very quickly for $499. Our disaster preparedness plan includes an audit of your server and backup to see if you are covered and ready for the storm.

(Call 800.821.8962 or in this period of weather crisis we will be monitoring our after hours email address at support@sodiumdental.com. Please email us your needs and your contact information and we will get back to you right away.)

Your office is required by law to maintain any records that include personal health information. This is even true in the case that you are hit by a hurricane. With that in mind, now is the time to check your backup to ensure that it is a full backup and that the data is restorable. Far too often, people believe that because their backup says it is complete that that is all they need to know. We have seen many times where even the wrong files were being backed up, so even though the backup said complete, they were never backing up the correct files to begin with.

Finally, in this time of crisis, there will be companies taking advantage of the situation and will be raising their rates for replacing computers and equipment. There will be high demand for computer systems and other equipment after the crisis, and you don’t want to be left last in line.

Sodium Dental is offering a Rush Guarantee to be able to be on-site replacing equipment within FIVE days of the storm passing, whereas even in normal times the time to installation from order is 30 days.

To take advantage of our Rush Guarantee, we ask for a deposit of $1,000. From this deposit, we will take an inventory of your computer and sensor needs and make sure we have the necessary equipment in stock to support your needs. This deposit will hold on your account for 180 days and can be used for any purchase with Sodium Dental. After 180 days, the deposit is forfeit.

IN CASE OF THE WORST, REMEMBER TO SECURE YOUR DATA — EVEN IN THE CASE OF DESTRUCTION

Computer systems that have been damaged or are being replaced may have very important personal health information on their data drives. Make sure you keep this in mind before allowing your computers to be disposed of. The drives must be rendered physically destroyed or must be wiped securely.

Sodium Dental does supply a secure data destruction option for our customers on all recycled equipment.

Dental Office Disaster Preparedness For Hurricane Irma