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Technology Stocks : Western Digital (WDC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sam Citron who wrote (10850)	11/18/2003 1:00:51 AM
From: tech101	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 11057

The New Rules of Storage Federal regulators have discovered data storage, big time. New laws are requiring companies to save more data and to save it longer. Here's your guide to regulatory compliance. New rules are forcing companies to buy more storage and develop new policies around its use. Story by Robert L. Scheier NOVEMBER 17, 2003 ( COMPUTERWORLD ) - Driven by corporate scandals and privacy concerns, new laws and regulations are requiring organizations to store more data, keep it longer and make sure it's accurate and easy to retrieve. In response, customers are buying more storage capacity and developing new storage policies to ensure that they comply with regulations such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Here's a look at these two storage-intensive regulations and how some organizations are keeping to the letter of the law while getting business benefits from their compliance dollars. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) What it entails: Encourages the use of electronic transactions to increase efficiencies in the health care field. Security rules require health care providers and insurers to protect patient information and to ensure its availability in case of disasters. Requires medical records to be kept in their original form for two years after the patient's death. Industries affected: Health care providers, health care insurers and health claims clearinghouses. Enacted: August 1996 Compliance deadline: April 21, 2005, for most covered entities; small health plans have until April 2006. Regulation road map: Experts advise IT departments to consider new optical technologies for long-term storage of records and say productivity and customer-service improvements could help pay for HIPAA compliance. Peter Gerr, an analyst at Enterprise Storage Group Inc. in Milford, Mass., says HIPAA's requirements for long-term storage of medical records will force health care providers not only to buy more storage, but also to create policies to manage it. A typical hospital generates 50TB to 70TB of magnetic resonance imaging and computerized tomography data per year and, in some cases, will need to keep and be able to access that data for decades. continued>> computerworld.com computerworld.com