Using technology to keep your data secure

Global Transcription Services has been providing high quality online medical transcription services to hospitals, private practices and healthcare facilities for many years. We prioritise the security of data at every single touchpoint thanks to the latest technology.

We know that the confidentiality of both your patients’ records and general practice data is of paramount importance and that’s why we have also implemented processes that ensure compliance is maintained.

Our online technology and policy ensures:

  • The sharing of data remains in our control at all times.
  • The safety of your information in both delivery and storage.
  • The availability of data to authorised users ONLY.

All data is stored and processed in Emdat servers in a secure data centre. The servers run in a VMware environment and use Windows Server 2016 and SQL server 2017 CU2. Data-at-rest in the data centre is encrypted. The environment is designed and configured to be highly redundant; any single failure of a communication device, server, or storage device will not stop operations. It has redundant access to the two Internet backbone providers. The data centre has redundant public power supplies, an engine generator, redundant air conditioning systems, and is highly secure.

When a transcription is received, or any edited transcription is received in the Emdat data centre, it is immediately copied to two additional storage arrays within the primary data centre. Within 5 minutes, it is copied to a global storage array in the secondary data centre. Each night a full backup is performed from the primary data centre to the secondary data centre.

Emdat’s uptime exceeds 99.9% outside of scheduled maintenance periods.

The Emdat data centre houses all the data that comprises a Client including the client configuration, dictations (audio files), and transcriptions. Dictations are saved for 90 days. Transcriptions are saved as long as the client is active.

All data on a device in the data centre is scrubbed in accordance with the Media Disposal and Re-Use Policy (form 18).

Data moved between data centres is encrypted with a Virtual Private Network service over the high-speed regional network.

System overview
Infrastructure and data flow diagram