United Physicians Upgrades to S3 Compatible Object Storage for Backup
Founded in 2000, United Physicians, Inc. is one of Michigan’s largest physician organizations, representing more than 2,400 physicians with medical staff privileges at hospitals throughout Southeast Michigan. United Physicians’ mission is to deliver a healthcare system of excellence to its community through a coordinated, efficient and integrated network of physicians. Finding a simple, cost-effective data storage backup solution was critical to United Physicians’ business model.
Customer
United Physicians
Location
Bingham Farms, MI
Industry
Medical network of physicians for healthcare organizations
Executive Summary
- Simple and seamless offsite data storage backup to the US Signal Cloud
- Easy access to data from anywhere and recover from the cloud
- Long-term retention of data on secure server
- Agent-based backup with a third-party management portal and offsite storage
- High quality customer service to help with transition of providers and continued use
- Meet compliance requirements around handling sensitive data
The Situation
United Physicians was using an inefficient and outdated solution for its data backup process needs. To keep pace with the network’s growing service offerings, the IT team knew it was time to modernize the process. As part of this transformation, United Physicians was interested in the ability to access its offsite data quicker, ideally through offsite disaster recovery and backup solutions.
As a result, United Physicians researched several cloud backup providers, including Amazon, but eventually chose to go with US Signal due to its flat-rate program and the simplicity of its model, including an easy understanding of the dollar amount per megabyte, no step-up or step-down of speed, and reduced complexity. The presale assistance from the account team was also an important element, which United Physicians called “honest and upfront.”
The US Signal Solution
Leveraging US Signal’s S3 data storage, United Physicians is able to work with a localized company to utilize an efficient data storage backup service that allows them to transfer data securely to an offsite location via the cloud and quickly access the data at any needed time.
US Signal provides United Physicians with a cost-effective solution for long-term retention that is scalable with the organization’s growth and business objectives. The solution has easy, rapid access to the healthcare network’s data, from any Internet-connected device, via S3 or Swift API transactions -- and includes geodiverse storage locations.
“US Signal’s S3 data storage and backup solutions, and its support staff, have given us a very positive experience. It’s a real simple model to understand, and the availability of our data made US Signal stand out from the competitors. In addition, implementing US Signal’s offerings has benefited us prior to and certainly during the pandemic, as it has provided us with hands-off, fully electronic capabilities. It’s been a key part of our overall digital transformation as an organization.”
-Michael Reilly, manager of technical services and IT process improvement, United Physicians
Tech Partners Used
The Results
Opting for US Signal’s S3 data storage and backup solutions eliminated the complexity of tiered pricing that comes with many data storage providers. This would be a massive burden for any organization, but prohibitively expensive for a small operation such as United Physicians as it continues to grow.
In addition, the implementation has helped United Physicians comply with industry requirements for handling sensitive data, such as HIPAA, further solidifying its status as a trusted healthcare organization. “We have only worked with US Signal for seven months,” continued Reilly. “But we can already see that once we have fully utilized the solution, it will provide an obvious ROI for an organization like us.”
About the Customer
Michigan-based United Physicians has a network of member doctors who are focused on innovating in and improving the healthcare sector. They provide multiple lines of service, such as processing big data and using that to assist medical facilities and hospitals with meeting government requirements for performance and quality metrics. United Physicians also provides preventative care management services as a step between the doctor and emergency room, as well as credentialing for doctors’ education and licensing.