Transcript:
What if there was an easily-preventable safety problem that was causing death and destruction all around you? Would you take immediate action to fix it?
In 1999, the US Institute of Medicine released a shocking study, where they revealed that over 98,000 people died every year from preventable medical errors.
- That’s the equivalent of about one fully loaded jumbo jet crashing every single day.
- At this rate, a population the size of Boston’s could be wiped out every 6 years.
Just like other humans, doctors make mistakes. And because their time is valuable, they must make lots of potentially life-or-death decisions, in a fast-paced work environment that’s full of multi-tasking and distractions.
This is why the US Institute of Medicine’s “To Err Is Human” report recommended computerized automation as one of the simplest and most effective ways to drastically cut down on the number of preventable patient deaths.
Although computerized automation tools had existed for a long time before this report, many doctors still preferred their traditional paper-based systems. They simply saw no urgency in changing the way they’ve always worked. And as a result, thousands of people were negatively affected.
The IT industry is undergoing a very similar crisis, when it comes to data protection. Although human error and physical media failure are the 2 most easily-preventable causes of critical data loss, they still account for 82% of all incidents. And as a result, 45% of all SMB IT executives have reported experiencing critical data loss.
And the biggest reasons for this are orthodoxy and tradition. Just like with doctors, IT time is valuable. IT administrators make lots of important decisions, in a fast-paced work environment that’s full of multi-tasking and distractions.
Most IT administrators prefer the comfort and control of manually managing their own backup systems, despite the fact that automation and specialized delegation clearly offer better overall security.
When it comes to data protection and business continuity, the stakes are high.
If a doctor makes a medical mistake, it can hurt one patient. But if an IT administrator makes a backup mistake, it can bring down large companies and destroy the livelihoods of thousands of people.
If left untreated, errors in your business continuity and data protection can become a ticking time bomb within your company. Preventable data loss needs to be addressed immediately, before it’s too late.
First, make sure that all work related to data protection, compliance and business continuity are delegated to a trusted, well-trained specialist that exclusively does this kind of work without any distractions. This will ensure that you’re prepared and well-rehearsed for any emergency scenarios.
Second, make sure that this individual has all of the best-of-breed automation tools, backed by the best infrastructure & equipment, so that they can confidently automate every aspect of your data protection, compliance and business continuity.
Through specialization, automation, and redundancy, you can eliminate the leading causes of preventable data loss from your IT management, while also freeing up time for other work. And hopefully, this will give you total peace of mind for your data protection.