Royal Philips has announced the introduction of a secure data recovery service, built in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS), that rapidly captures and backs up an entire healthcare organization's data repository in the cloud.

Specifically tailored to meet the needs of medical data backup, Philips' new storage service helps healthcare enterprises to further secure patient-critical information against local data loss events, ranging from equipment failure to catastrophic events such as earthquake, fire and flood. With this new storage solution, Philips and AWS continue to strengthen their collaboration to deliver innovative solutions that accelerate the industry's transformation toward a more connected, value-based, patient-centered care model.

Philips' new hybrid storage solution combines the company's expertise in medical data management with AWS' petabyte-scale data transport service, AWS Import/Export Snowball, to integrate, manage, encrypt and transfer a hospital's entire data repository to the cloud within days, rather than the weeks or months it would take via a wired network. Using the Philips data recovery service, a hospital organization's IT department simply plugs an AWS Import/Export Snowball device into its network, invokes the appropriate security features, and transfers the required data to the unit. The device is then physically shipped back and the data transferred to Philips' HealthSuite digital platform, an open cloud-based platform that allows the creation of the next generation of connected health and clinical IT innovations.

Vendor neutral in terms of the type, format and source of the data, the Philips solution manages security, identity and access, auditing, logging and traceability associated with medical data backup. The goal is to deliver a service that would meet the requirements of the US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) by the second half of 2016.

In addition to meeting one-time backup requirements, Philips' HealthSuite data recovery storage service is designed to assist in meeting the ongoing backup needs of healthcare IT departments. One or more of AWS' 50 terabyte data transport devices will remain on-site to provide a local backup, from which all or parts of the data can be quickly recovered. Philips HealthSuite digital platform will provide users with the option of adding powerful data analytics, such as population studies, and sophisticated reporting features. It will also offer them the ability to transfer files to or from the cloud via a secure Philips network connection.

"Due to the nature of their data, many healthcare organizations have understandably in the past adopted in-house solutions, but the explosion in the amount of data they now need to secure, together with new regulatory requirements, mean that they need to adopt a different approach," said Mr Dale Wiggins, general manager HealthSuite digital platform, Philips. "By working together with AWS we can offer our customers a next-generation solution enabled by our HealthSuite platform that removes the time and cost barriers of cloud-based healthcare data backup and management."

"We're excited to bring the value of the cloud to even more healthcare organizations in collaboration with Philips," said Mr Bill Vass, vice president, AWS Storage Solutions. "By combining the expertise of Philips' HealthSuite with the power of our AWS Import/Export Snowball service, which transfers petabyte-scale data with secure appliances into and out of AWS, healthcare customers will be able to securely and reliably back up their important patient data to the cloud."

An early adopter of AWS technologies, Philips previously announced a collaboration with AWS focused on the AWS IoT service to enable an ecosystem for new types of connected and personalized eHealth solutions.

Philips will showcase its new HealthSuite recovery data management solution at booth #3416 at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) 2016 Annual Meeting and Exhibition, taking place Feb. 29 - March 4, at the Sands Expo in Las Vegas, NV.