DICOM Secure Storage, Archiving and Disaster Recovery Solutions

Why InSite One? - General Information & FAQs

Q:
Who is InSite One?
A:

Headquartered in Wallingford, Connecticut, InSite One, Inc. is a privately held data archive and disaster recovery service provider focused exclusively on the healthcare industry. InSite One services offers hospitals, imaging centers and physician group practices a versatile, secure and affordable service, called InDex, for managing the archiving, storage, access and disaster recovery of digital radiology, cardiology and mammography images. Recovery Plus services provide specific disaster recovery services for non-imaging data to establish secure automated digital disc-to-disc alternatives to the typical tape recovery implementations.

Q:
What is the InDex service?
A:

InSite One's InDex enterprise archive service was developed by experts in the healthcare and IT fields designed to optimize the archiving and storage of DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) for sites transitioning to filmless digital imaging environments.

InDex is an efficient, one-time fee per study service designed to optimize both on-site and off-site digital image archiving, storage, and access. With InDex's intelligent architecture, this service easily integrates with any PACS (Picture Archiving and Communications System) modality as well as hospital and radiological information systems (HIS/RIS). InDex provides on-demand access to radiological digital images residing either locally or at one of InSite One's storage facilities that is linked via an Internet Virtual Private Network (VPN) to a hospital's network.

Q:
What are InDex's principal benefits?
A:

Savings that can be applied to other mission critical needs.
- A fully managed storage solution reduces costs for hardware, software, square footage, and staff.
- Pay only a one-time fee per study, with no additional maintenance expense ever.
- Pay for any data migration as an operational expense by financing through InSite One Capital Partners.
Images are always available online.
- OnSite storage is sized to suit clinical workflow minimally for twelve months.
- Offsite storage provides infinite capacity with pre-fetch to on-site storage.
The integrity of data will be as complete years from now as the day the file was created.
- Continuous monitoring of stored images on all InDex services.
- Second copy stored off-site on optical media that is impervious to tampering.
Smooth installation and even smoother operation.
- "Plug and play" design integrates seamlessly with information systems, PACS or digital modality.
- "Intelligent archiving": data is stored, transmitted and archived automatically.
- 24-hour Help Desk guarantees support and expertise whenever data is needed, 365 days a year.
Ensured compliance with HIPAA guidelines for image security, confidentiality, redundancy and disaster recovery.
- State-of-the-art encryption protects data in both transit and storage.
- Geographically dispersed mirrored and tier-4 deep storage center safeguard data against catastrophic events.
Q:
How is InDex more effective for my site than my IT department could achieve on its own?
A:

InDex is an archive solution and therefore should not be compared to simply purchasing storage. As an enterprise archive system, InDex provides a feature set not found inherent in any PACS or in-house solution. Beginning with infinite scalability, a comparable solution to InDex must address how exams are stored for 7 or more years. A typical in-house scenario requires that hardware and software be purchased from capital budgets, maintained with service contracts and upgraded within the life of typical diagnostic study retention. This upgrade may require data migration between devices or technology. Furthermore, to be equivalent, software must be developed to encrypt the data for security, compress it for maximum storage and repeatedly validate the integrity of the archive data. Lastly, any solution must address the inherent redundancy included with the InDex service for duplicate copies to be stored geographically separated by over 100 miles.

Ultimately the InDex service provides a faster, more cost effective DICOM solution than an in-house solution could achieve using either in-house resources or outside vendors and consultants. At the core, off-the-shelf databases alone, considered for in-house systems (such as Oracle or Sybase) are neither efficient nor fast enough to handle large digital objects.

InDex applies economies of scale to amortize the advanced technology and resources required for the archiving and storage components including communications bandwidth, storage media, software and hardware, human and technical resources, and system maintenance.

Q:
Does InDex work with or without a PACS system?
A:

Both. InDex is an excellent solution for facilities with an existing PACS or those considering a PACS solution. For those with a PACS, InDex is a complementary solution that enhances the functionality, performance and cost-effectiveness of enterprise-wide PACS implementation. InDex enables hospitals to cost-effectively outsource the storage and archiving component of the PACS. By creating a DICOM image warehouse, InDex eliminates the need for large on-site PACS storage and archiving.

For organizations without a PACS or with limited PACS functionality, InDex delivers many of the storage and archiving features of a full-blown PACS system, minus the equipment and maintenance costs, technical upgrades and staffing support.

Q:
What are the innovative features of InDex?
A:

InDex is designed around an open architecture and software with a number of unique, patented features. Today, most in-hospital archiving solutions are based on generic (off-the-shelf) databases that lack the capabilities of, and are measurably less efficient than, InDex's optimized design.

Key features include:
- Both on-site and off-site storage.
- Infinite storage: unlimited capacity, scalability and flexibility.
- Digitally signed database records.High-speed accessibility (via Internet VPN).
- Encrypted data storage and data transmission.
- System design (transmission/storage) for very large data object sizes and read-only archiving.
- Built-in understanding of DICOM data format.
- Highly distributed independent system of database nodes.
- Redundant architecture; both in hardware and software (transaction integrity).
- Disaster recovery capability.
Q:
How does the InDex service work?
A:

Images from various DICOM and DICOM converted modalities are captured and routed through the hospital's network to a local server provided by InSite One. This server provides short-term access to images within the hospital network and performs archiving and retrieval sessions with InSite One's off-site digital warehouse. The local server quickly and securely sends images over the Internet or VPN to InSite One's digital warehouse servers and DVD jukeboxes. The local server can also retrieve images from InSite One's digital warehouse on-the-fly from workstations on the hospital network.

Q:
How is the data stored in the InDex network?
A:

InDex replicates and archives the digital images and stores them in RAID2 digitally-mirrored, geographically-placed warehouses and on DVD. These warehouses create extensions to the on-site storage creating infinite storage, storage redundancy and full disaster recovery.

Q:
What type of security does InDex employ?

A:
InDex employs military grade security protocols within its storage and retrieval system. These protocols meet existing laws and regulations regarding patient record confidentiality as currently being established by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and as mandated by the Federal Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Security of the network, storage facility, communications, and storage access is addressed in several layers including firewalls, filtering, digital signatures, encryption, and access control technologies.

Q:
How does InDex take advantage of Internet VPNs?
A:

By leveraging advancements in high-speed Internet VPN technologies, InDex easily links multiple and remote facilities and delivers services to the medical community on a national level quickly, reliably and securely. These technologies provide a means of transcending traditional physical barriers, which enables InSite One to offer its services to a wide geographical market.

Why InSite One? - General Information & FAQs

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