In Veterinary medicine, trust and timing are everything. Pet owners trust your team to deliver excellent care—and they trust your practice to keep accurate, secure records of that care. But what happens when technology falters? When the server crashes, data is corrupted, or files are lost to a malicious act?
Too often, Veterinary practices take their digital infrastructure on faith—assuming their systems will work because they always have. But even the most well-maintained systems can fail. That’s why backups are not a luxury; they’re a necessity. Think of them as your digital insurance policy, protecting your practice’s data, reputation, and ability to deliver care.
Why Are Backups Important?
Your practice runs on information—client records, medical histories, diagnostic images, financial reports, and more. When that data disappears or becomes inaccessible, the consequences are immediate and severe. Consider these risks:
- Operational Downtime: Without access to patient records, appointments may need to be rescheduled or canceled altogether.
- Lost Data: Vital medical history, diagnostic images, and prescription details could be gone forever.
- Revenue Loss: Every minute your systems are down is a minute you’re not generating income.
- Reputation Damage: Clients lose trust fast if you can’t access their pet’s records or must reschedule due to a “technical issue.”
Backups help mitigate these threats and keep your practice functioning during unexpected failures—be they hardware crashes, ransomware attacks, or accidental deletions.
Defining Backup Success: RTO and RPO
To build a reliable backup strategy, you need to understand two key concepts: RTO (Recovery Time Objective) and RPO (Recovery Point Objective). They measure how quickly and how fully you can recover from a data disaster.
RPO: How Much Can You Afford to Lose?
RPO refers to the maximum amount of data your business can afford to lose before it impacts your operations. If you back up your system every 24 hours and something goes wrong, you could lose up to a day’s worth of data. For most Veterinary practices, that’s too much.
Ask yourself:
- How often are you updating patient data, invoices, or diagnostic records?
- How frequently are backups being performed?
- Do you have enough storage to maintain frequent, incremental backups?
The more frequently you back up your data, the tighter your RPO—and the safer your practice.
RTO: How Quickly Can You Bounce Back?
RTO measures how fast you can restore access to your systems after a crash. Do you need your systems up within an hour? Within a day? Longer?
Important questions to consider:
- How much downtime can your practice reasonably afford?
- What’s your budget for recovery solutions?
- Do you have the necessary infrastructure (or vendor support) to meet your recovery timeline?
According to FEMA, roughly 40% to 60% of small businesses never reopen after a disaster. The key to avoiding that fate? A well-designed Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR) plan with clearly defined RTO and RPO objectives.
Physical Backups: Old-School Reliability with Modern Support
Many Veterinary practices still use on-premises servers to host their practice management systems (PIMS), such as Cornerstone or Avimark. These local servers are often the digital heart of the practice—and if they go down, everything stops.
Best Practice: For these setups, a physical backup device is non-negotiable. Ideally, the device should perform hourly backups and sync with the cloud for added redundancy. That way, even if the server fails, your data lives on.
Case Study: Donut Server Saves the Day
One Veterinary practice was running on an aging server that had begun throwing warnings. Sure enough, it eventually died. The good news? The practice had a BCDR (Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery) unit in place. This backup device could spin up a virtual version of their server, allowing them to continue seeing patients while waiting for a replacement. It wasn’t a permanent fix—but like a donut spare tire, it got them safely to their destination.
Cloud Backups: Out of Sight, But Never Out of Mind
If your practice uses a cloud-based PIMS like Instinct, EzyVet, or ProVet Cloud, you may assume your data is fully protected. And for the most part, it is—these platforms handle regular backups on your behalf.
However, many practices operate in hybrid environments, where some patient data lives in the cloud, but other business-critical files (like shared documents, imaging software, or financial records) remain on an in-house server or workstation. In these cases, a physical backup device is still important.
Cloud backups are also essential for email and other SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) platforms. Many Veterinary teams assume email providers automatically protect and restore their data. Unfortunately, most providers only guarantee access to the platform—not the security or retention of the content.
Case Study: Malicious Deletion, Safe Recovery
A Veterinary practice was preparing to terminate an employee. The employee caught wind of the situation and before their access was revoked, maliciously deleted emails from a shared account. Thankfully, the practice had deployed SaaS backup protection, which allowed them to restore every deleted email quickly and painlessly.
Moral of the story: Just because it’s in the cloud doesn’t mean it’s invincible.
Don’t Forget Dental (and Diagnostic Imaging)
Dental imaging systems—and similar diagnostic tools—often store high-fidelity images critical to both patient care and compliance. These images are ideally linked to a PACS system (Picture Archiving and Communication System), which should back up regularly to the cloud.
If that integration doesn’t exist, a local backup plan for the dental machine itself is vital. The loss of diagnostic images can mean lost care history, billing disputes, or even legal liability.
Takeaways: Build Your Safety Net
Backup systems aren’t just about ticking a compliance box—they’re about safeguarding your ability to care for patients and run your business. Here’s what every Veterinary practice should have in place:
- Clearly defined RTO and RPO goals
- Hourly local backups for on-premises systems
- Cloud replication for redundancy
- SaaS backup protection for email and file storage
- PACS-integrated backups for imaging systems
- A trusted IT partner to monitor and test backups regularly
You insure your equipment. You insure your building. Make sure you’re also insuring your data—because in today’s Veterinary practice, it’s one of your most valuable assets.
(To learn more about how the author, William Lindus, and I.T. Guru can help provide your Veterinary practice with safe, secure, and stable technology and cybersecurity environments, book a free consultation today!)
References:
https://www.datto.com/blog/the-importance-of-rpo-and-rto/
https://www.datto.com/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/BackupVsBusinessContinuity.pdf