Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Take-home back up

Bert,
The size of the entire AC file that I double backup daily is 208 MB, but this is the entire AC. I think that the actual database is 36.5 MB.
The backup on either the external drive or the thumbdrive just takes 30 to 60 seconds.
I have downloaded the backups to various computers with good results.
Your thoughts?
Jim

I think your strategy is good. Be careful or you will become as obsessed with backups as Adam and I.

That is what I figured, that you were referring to the whole chart. I was just asking, because if your main database were ? 200Mbs, then one of us was doing something wrong.

I do think Alborg has a good point that I never thought of. Given that photos can add up MBs in a hurry, that could increase the size of a database very quickly. And, as a pediatrician, we don't take pictures, because a two-month-old's face looks very much like a six-month-old's. And, I think parents are less likely to feel comfortable about our taking pictures of their kids.

Have a nice night.

Jim,
I would like to share the following.
My office is in process of scanning our paper files into the Import items of AC. We have 2,000 active patients. We are scanning in the charts either the day prior to a patient's visit, or the day of their visit. I anticipate having 50-75& of our charts scanned in within 3-6 months. As the intial "rush" slows, we'll begin scanning other charts....those patients that are less active.

Yes it's a lot of work for all (me and the staffers). However, they are keeping up. I pay them well, and they do what I say. I say "You are going to get them all scanned in," and they make it work. They say, "we are struggling to keep up," and I reply, "you are doing a great job, keep it up. Figure it out and make it work." People are amazing, and they'll do amazing things. When you inspire staff with a sense of purpose, a goal, a common task with a deadline....they make it happen.

Amazing charts, for Amazing people.

I feel your plight Jim, I really do. But I decided to "Just Do It," borrowing from Nike. And it's working. Consider giving it a try and just start scanning. It's easier than it seems.

Hi Adam,
You may have misunderstood.
Although I had over 4,000 patients with paper charts a year ago in my former practice, I currently have a closed practice that began last September. We are responsible for the care of 463 full time OTC employees and their dependents (will likely add an additional 600 part time employees and their dependents soon); we have to date seen approximately 300. All of these patients are entered into AC and, although I backed up my AC with paper copies intitially, the only paper portion of the chart currently is the lab and we are working on that.
Converting years of paper charts is something we definitely should address in our upcoming conference.
Best,
Jim

Sorry I misunderstood. Chart conversion would be a good topic.
Mine is an issue of space. My new building does not have space available for walls of chart racks, so I must get rid of my paper out of necessity, otherwise it could have been easier to simply start anew with AC while keeping the old paper charts on file.

This topic came up at Branson, so I thought I would bring it to the top of the list.

Duke,

Here's the deal. Yes, you can back up your files to your laptop, and yes having the data there makes it easy to look up. But, how often do you need that access. There are several forms of being able to remote in with different speeds and security. For me, although I have several options with Remote Desktop, GoToMyPC, LogMeIn and RWW, Remote Desktop with terminal server is extremely secury and blazing fast. I can click on Remote Desktop and be into my computer at work in under three seconds. And, running AmazingCharts given the screen pictures, is very fast. I would think bring home a laptop everyday would be cumbersome, rather than a thumb drive. (which I am not big into). Another topic.

Synchronization is not a website it is part of AC. It is in the Administrative options.

BackupAssist is one of at least 50 backup software programs for servers or workstations. You purchase the software. Of course, if you want to continue getting upgrades and support, you have to pay for those. BackupAssist is probably the easiest and cheapest and BEST backup program out there.

I'm not really sure what you mean by a computer not being able to access or read an external hard drive. Of course it can. Basically, you are backing up from the computer to the hard drive in the first place.

Certainly, if you are using a thumb drive to back up the program to take home, then downloading to any PC there is one more backup and allows you to know if it is working properly.

The only problem with some of the solutions above is that backin up one day's worth of data is sufficient. It is not! That is the single biggest flaw in backing up data today. A good backup strategy backs up at least two weeks worth of data. Backups are for corrupted data, errorneous deletion of files, intentional backups of files, and hard drive crashes or same day data corruption. Same day backups protect you from the last two but do little for the first three. Certainly the most important backup is the one you just made, but if a file were corrupted two weeks ago or deleted two weeks ago, then you will be kicking yourself if you can't retrieve it, because you have been copying over it everyday. Plus, when you go back to restore from last night's backup and you suddenly realize it is no good or even worse, it wasn't done, you will be glad you have a back up from a week ago.

As far as going back on the Syncs, you need to change your search parameters so you are going back six months or so. But, you certainly don't want to be adding notes at home and syncing them back everyday.