A colleague in Los Angeles reports that her transfusion service maintains their current and archived policies and procedures, forms, QA indicators, event occurrence documentation, and other vital documents as Word and Excel files that are stored on a local network drive and backed up onto tape. The tape is taken "off site." However, "off site" is only a couple of buildings away. She asks how far away others consider "off site" to be? What is the practice at other institutions?

The following comments have been received.

ADDENDA April 30, 2007

1. A member of the AABB IS Committee comments "there is no hard and fast rule or regulation" and commends them on "for thinking ahead, and getting the back-ups done AND moved at least out of the building."

She says "the way to think about this is in terms of risk assessment. Given the 'most likely' disaster scenarios are things like a fire or flood, right next door is probably not a great idea. You can have fairly localized disaster scenarios which could cause major damage to both facilities."

She suggests thinking of "at least one mile away, and ensuring these tapes are stored in a water and fire safe lock box or cabinet."

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Ira A. Shulman, MD
CBBS e-Network Forum Editor & Moderator

W. Tait Stevens, MD
CBBS e-Network Forum Assistant Editor & Moderator