On the morning of August 14, a 20-foot-long piece of concrete fell from the third floor of a suburban Toronto office building where several large group practices are located and smashed into the ground below, luckily not injuring anyone. City inspectors, concerned about other pieces falling as well, immediately evacuated and cordoned off the entire building.

You might think this would spell disaster to the building’s two Family Health Teams and to the one preparing to move in in eight days. Without their records and computers and phones, how would they care for their patients? How would they even let patients know the building was closed? How would they refer patients appropriately until the building reopened?

Thanks to a cleverly planned, remotely hosted computer system, none of those problems turned out to be insurmountable, says Dr. Michelle Greiver, a family physician and researcher who was among the doctors who had to scramble to adapt when they learned their relocation plans might have to be put on hold.

The doctors’ paper records had been scanned and digitized. Their electronic records were hosted remotely and could be accessed on the internet from any computer. Their phone lines were internet-based (VoIP) and, like the records, could be operated anyplace there was an internet connection. Aside from fax machines, just about everything was portable. What might have been a full-blown crisis for doctors and patients alike was averted and the building was cleared to be reopened three days later.

“If you don’t have an ASP [application service provider], you have your servers inside your office,” says Dr. Greiver. That means your data is inaccessible if your office is closed, and it means that one break-in or one broken piece of concrete could cost you (and your patients) dearly. An ASP-based network solves those problems. The cost of having your computer network and storage systems professionally managed is well worth it, says Dr. Greiver. “It pays,” she says. “This is not something you want a doctor to do.” She would know: her practice tried to manage their own system at first. “We had no idea. We made every mistake known. We don’t know anything about servers… There’s no security manual. Nobody tells you what to do.”

If you live in some provinces, including Ontario and Alberta and soon BC, the health ministry operates its own ASP-based network for electronic health records, accessible at a reasonable price. Alternatively, a number of private companies offer remote-hosting and access services as well as the kind of security that will let you sleep soundly at night knowing your patients’ records are safe. That’s something you simply can’t put a price on.