I was recently asked, “How effective is your daily data backup in your practice?” I had no idea so I retorted, “Very effective… I think.” With over twenty-five years of experience in the dental industry, I have amassed extensive clinical and administrative knowledge. However, I confess that technical issues still perplex me.

My paths first crossed with data backup before the days of computers. A fire broke out in the building where my dental practice was located. As I hauled my A/R ledgers and appointment book outside to safety, it dawned on me how fragile data and our data storage were. As the firemen extinguished the fire, I reasoned I could not expect our staff to carry the heavy and cumbersome records home everyday. What preventative measures could be taken in the event of an after-hour disaster? I crossed my fingers and prayed disaster would never strike again.

As computers manifested into the workplace, my love-hate relationship with tape backups emerged. Each of five tapes, beautifully labeled with the days of the week, accompanied an “advanced” procedure: remove the previous day’s tape at the end of the day, tuck it into your purse and store it at home; insert today’s tape into the tape drive for immediate data storage. My colleagues and I were awestruck by our flawless practice; that is until disaster #2 struck. Our computer crashed. With tape backups in hand, we boldly approached our software vendor to recover our data. “What do you mean the data on the tapes is incomplete or missing? You can only recover 10% of our data?” I begged. One agonizing year later of recruiting help and sifting through day end sheets (which luckily we had printed beforehand), we recovered our lost data. Our misfortune was perplexing; we had done everything we were told to do. Our software company conceded, “Your tapes are old, but can be maintained current by purchasing new ones monthly for a mere $150/month.” Can we say robbery? Oh yes, and there was no guarantee with the tapes.

Data loss can be catastrophic when it strikes home. Cognizant that my most precious data is personal pictures, I burned all of my photos to CD. The peril of this simple and affordable approach was exposed when my home computer crashed. I loaded the first of thirteen CD’s onto my fixed computer only to find nothing. I lost all of my pictures of my children, holidays and special occasions; even my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. The sting of that moment will forever haunt me.

May the age of automation have mercy on me? There must be a bright side to technology. I settled into the world of “automatic timely back-ups” (too good to be true), data encryption (say what?) and 100% restoration (right, I have heard that before). My software vendor was annoyed by my skepticism proclaiming I should be “thankful for technology.” Forgive my doubt but his artificial words did not deliver peaceful slumber.

I will be the first to admit it is easier to believe the plethora of lies out there about data protection, than to uncover the truth and establish proper protection. However I cannot disregard the anguish of data loss or the vast ignorance that surrounds it. While the dental software I most recently used was best in class, it was non-compliant with provincial dental association’s data retention requirements; we did not maintain or protect ten years of our patient files. If we ever had to restore our data, we would have been shocked by the sticker price that we thought was included in our monthly fee.

One thing I am certain, you will be threatened by data loss. Computers fail. Make sure you are protecting what you could not afford to lose. No matter how great software affects your bottom line, or how gorgeous that picture is of your newborn, it is worth nothing when it is gone and will cost you more than you could ever imagine. I encourage you to avoid the pain I experienced by taking the time to discuss the importance of this matter with someone who specializes in IT data backup. Ensure that your system will allow for complete disaster recovery. Ignorance is not bliss, at least not when we are talking computers.

Nelle Pedersen currently serves on the executive team of Toggle Networks, Inc, a Calgary firm committed to data protection.