VERITAS Software Corporation (Nasdaq: VRTS) today announced that Oklahoma-based Unity Health Center is using VERITAS Backup Exec™ software to protect critical patient and hospital data and help comply with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) regulations regarding data availability and disaster recovery planning. Unity Health Center also uses the VERITAS Backup Exec Desktop and Laptop Option to help ensure that critical information on employee laptops is fully protected and quickly recoverable in the event of equipment failures, disaster or other disruption.

Unity Health Center was formed in 2002 after the unification of Shawnee Regional Hospital and Mission Hill Memorial Hospital. With more than 700 healthcare professionals on staff, the Center’s mission is to bring technologically advanced, compassionate health care to its community. Since unification, VERITAS has played a pivotal role in protecting the Center’s increasing volumes of patient data and supporting the organization’s expanding IT infrastructure.

Data Protection for HIPAA Compliance

VERITAS has played a key role in helping Unity Health Center comply with the data protection and disaster recovery requirements mandated by HIPAA. “We are well on our way to being in full compliance with the Security Rule by the April 2005 deadline,” said Kena Jones, CHP, MCSE, director of MIS, Unity Health Center. “VERITAS has been absolutely critical in our ability to meet HIPAA compliance criteria.”

For healthcare providers such as Unity Health Center, a loss or corruption of data can result in non-compliance with HIPAA regulations and may also directly affect patient well-being. To ensure the highest level of care for its patients, the Center’s information technology policy requires a business continuity solution that ensures 24/7 data availability and disaster recovery support for more than 700 on-campus and remote staff. To meet this challenge, Unity Heath Center turned to VERITAS Backup Exec software, which helped the hospital extend data protection to remote users while simultaneously reducing backup times by 75 percent.

“The VERITAS Backup Exec Desktop and Laptop Option is good for both healthcare staff and the IT department. VERITAS helps us ensure that remote users have 24/7 access to the data residing on their desktops and laptops and, using Backup Exec, we’ve shortened backup times for our remote user data from four hours to one hour,” said Steven Vasquez, MIS network administrator, Unity Health Center. “With VERITAS, we’ve significantly improved IT productivity and our IT staff can now focus more of its time on supporting our patient care resources.”