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NewswireToday - /newswire/ -
Holland, OH, United States, 02/12/2008 - Two Internet cables were damaged in late January, leaving much of the Middle East and Asia without service. Although many U.S. companies were seriously affected by this outage, Heartland Information Services had the proper processes in place.
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It was the “snap” heard round the world as two Internet traffic cables under the Mediterranean Sea were damaged in late January, seriously affecting or disrupting Internet capacity throughout Asia and the Middle East. The ripple effect for many U.S. companies who outsource was significant, but thanks to its redundant systems and disaster recovery plans, for Heartland Information Services it was just another day at the office.
Setting a standard for how companies should prepare for these such disasters, Heartland – an international outsourced medical transcription company with data centers and home medical transcriptionists (MTs) located throughout the affected areas – had both the networks and plans in place to ensure that their healthcare customers’ protected health information (PHI) was not at all affected by this immense disruption in information management.
Redundancy of Heartland’s data and networks was key to the company’s ability to seamlessly transfer backed up data and enabled affected transcription centers (like in Mumbai, India) to automatically reroute data to other centers in Pune and Chennai. The work of at-home MTs whose Internet systems also went down was safely transferred into Heartland’s central transcription centers, thus guaranteeing that the company’s promised turnaround times were met.
The company’s extremely detailed disaster recovery plan also allows the company to perform at such high levels of security. When a tsunami hit Chennai, India – another transcription center location – in 2004, the company’s disaster plan flew into action, again preventing the loss of PHI and building confidence in Heartland’s data stability.
“Heartland didn’t think twice about its response to the Middle East Internet outage. At a moment’s notice, our redundant systems and centrally networked centers were able to pick up where affected lines left off,” says Cathy Clemons, Executive Vice President of Global Operations. “We were able to continue to meet our client’s needs uninterrupted, while others struggled to perform in a world without vital communication standards.”
The cause of the cable breaks has not been determined; authorities believe the cables may have been damaged by a ship’s anchor. The disruption cut Internet capacity in Saudi Arabia and India by about 50%, 60% in Egypt, but India is well known for its sizable amount of bandwidth and will probably not suffer any lasting effects from the outage.
About Heartland Information Services
Heartland Information Services (heartlandis.com) specializes in high-quality, full-service medical transcription providing financial and service advantages that helps its clients reach or exceed goals. Heartland provides unparalleled efficiency, reliability and management capabilities while interfacing with virtually any health information system and software. Heartland’s corporate headquarters is located in Toledo, Ohio, with work centers in Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, Pune and Delhi, India.
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