Plan now to backup business, practice records.(usage of electronic systems)

The recent disaster along the Gulf Coast may be a wake-up call for all physicians to establish some kind of emergency backup system for their businesses.

"Physicians don't always think of themselves as running a business, but they're going to think of it now," Rosemarie Nelson, a Syracuse, N.Y.-based consultant with the Medical Group Management Association, said in an interview.

Otolaryngologist Michael Ellis, M.D., is hoping that technology might have retained some of his records. His practice in Chalmette, La., south of New Orleans, is in an area flooded to the rooftops in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent breakdown of New Orleans' levees.

"Like most physicians, I have billing electronic records, but my office clinical records are paper. I assume all that--and our supplies and equipment--will be unsalvageable," he said in an interview shortly following the flood.

Dr. Ellis said that he had backups in place for his billing records, both hard copy and "off campus," (outside computer services) assuming that certain computers weren't damaged or backed up during the flood.

As Ms. Nelson noted, "there is just no way to secure paper records. They're there or they're not. You're not going to copy and store them off-site."

However, a fully integrated electronic medical record might not have been completely safe for stricken medical communities, either.