Lakewood Health System enhances patient care with Veeam's data resilience and portability solutions

Cyberattacks in the U.S. healthcare industry broke records in 2024 and impacted more than 182 million people.

“A cyberattack is every IT professional’s worst nightmare, but when you’re in the business of providing healthcare services that save lives, the stakes are even higher,” said Jim Roeder, Vice President of IT at Lakewood Health System.

In addition to saving lives, Lakewood Health System brings new lives into the world. It was the #1 critical-access hospital in Minnesota for births in 2023, which is high praise because roughly 20% of the state is considered a maternity-care desert.

“Like all critical-access hospitals, we’re limited to 25 beds, yet more than 450 babies are born in our hospital each year,” Roeder said.

Data resilience became a challenge when Lakewood used EMC Avamar and RecoverPoint for backup and replication.

“The solutions didn’t evolve over time, so they couldn’t meet our business requirements,” Roeder said. “We required immutability to protect against cyberattacks and cloud backup.”

Lakewood replaced the EMC solutions with Veeam Data Platform Premium edition.

Lakewood also transitioned from using Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 (with separately purchased backup storage that increased in price as data grew) to Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365 (an all-in-one fully managed cloud service that provides unlimited storage for cost predictability). Microsoft Outlook, Teams, and OneDrive are the gold standard for communication and file sharing among Lakewood’s 1,000 healthcare providers and clinicians.

Veeam delivers unmatched data resilience so Lakewood can deliver unrivaled patient care.

Veeam Data Platform backs up virtual machine data to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and enables several firsts for Lakewood: immutability, replica portability, data portability, scalable orchestrated recovery, and automated testing and documentation that support compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

“Replica portability is an important ‘first’ because it’s a key part of our BCDR strategy,” Roeder said. “Data portability is another important first because we can back up and store data in whatever configuration best supports the delivery of patient care.”

Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365 backs up data to Microsoft Azure and offers several firsts as well including backup scalability with unlimited storage at no extra cost, storage flexibility without lock-in, and granular, scalable recovery.

“One of things we like best about Veeam Data Cloud is scalability at a fixed cost,” Roeder said.

“If OneDrive grows by 100 terabytes each year, the cost won’t skyrocket each year.”

Roeder said cost containment is key for healthcare organizations like Lakewood, so he is also grateful that Veeam’s airtight backup strategy reduces cyber insurance premiums, enabling the organization to use that savings to secure additional coverage.

“When you’re applying for cyber insurance, you have to explain your BCDR strategy,” he said. “Because of Veeam we can prove that if one site goes down we can quickly spin up another site. And, if we’re hit with ransomware, we have immutable backups. Veeam enables us to check all the boxes for cyber insurance, which is harder to get each year.”

Roeder said when someone asks him why he uses Veeam, his answer is simple.

“Veeam is more than traditional backup and recovery. It’s a highly available platform for BCDR, and what everyone says is true: You set it and forget it. However, if you experience a disaster or a cyber event, your organization will stay up and running.”

• Unmatched data resilience and portability support the delivery of patient care
  “If I could tell my younger self one thing about data protection it would be this: Patient care depends on data resilience and portability, and if you’ve got Veeam, you’ve got both,” Roeder said.
• Data immutability meets all cybersecurity and business continuity requirements
  “Our healthcare providers wouldn’t be able to effectively and safely care for patients if the full spectrum of information and data were unavailable,” Roeder said. “That’s not an issue for us because we can recover from immutable backups quickly and easily.”
• Airtight backup strategy reduces cyber insurance premiums and savings secure additional coverage
  “In addition to reducing cyber insurance premiums, our airtight backup strategy means we always have a resilient copy of data at our disaster recovery sites,” Roeder said.