Register for iAdmin | A virtual conference for the IBM i professional, April 30-May 1

Register
Healthcare Professional on iPad
Articles & Insights

FAQ: Third-Party Maintenance (TPM) in the Healthcare Industry

Quick, effective support for 24/7 uptime in the data center is a top priority for IT healthcare professionals.

Minimizing data center disruptions is critical to meet the demands of electronic records, virtual care and telemedicine.

Over 600 healthcare customers trust us to provide TPM support for their server, storage and network equipment.

Yes. While the covered entity (hospital/healthcare organization) is responsible for understanding, acknowledging, and meeting the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations, we are committed to following the guidelines that our 600+ healthcare customers have in place to meet HIPAA regulations.

Not in all cases. Is your data secure in the current level of firmware your system is operating with?

We advise our customers on which firmware updates may affect the security of their data and recommend obtaining such updates (which OEMs may provide to equipment owners at no cost). We help our customers through the process of applying the firmware updates to their systems and equipment to ensure data center security.

Yes. We sign both Business Associate Agreements (BAA) and Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA) for our customers. Protecting healthcare data is the rule, not the exception.

We will not compromise any type of securities that you have in place to ensure data is secure. We comply with all processes to protect secure data while still allowing access to repair your equipment.

When providing maintenance support, it is not necessary to access any secure data. In the event we need a remote access point we will set up a one-time remote session. We will never remotely or locally access a server without customer knowledge and permission. 

We offer drive retention to customers who prefer to keep chain of custody on failed drives in-house for HIPAA compliance. Most OEMs will charge for Defective Media Retention (DMR) or Comprehensive Defective Media Retention (CMDR), but our customers can retain drives and other magnetic media at no charge.

If removing any drives or defective media off-site becomes necessary, we protect your confidential information by properly disposing of the drives. Our data destruction process adheres to the government data destruction policy.

If you are keeping equipment longer due to legacy apps, archived medical records, sustainability reasons or budgetary constraints, we can help you extend your current and legacy equipment for months or years past the standard OEM equipment life cycle. Our post-warranty maintenance also supports a wide range of End of Life (EOL) and End of Service Life (EOSL) equipment.

Yes. We meet your coverage needs with various Service Level Agreements. You can choose 24/7, Same Business Day, Next Business Day or a customized solution. Our onsite response rate for meeting these SLAs is 99%.


We ensure SLA success by providing timely responses, quality parts and experienced engineers.

Yes. Our engineers have the experience and resources to provide multi-vendor support for your server, storage and network equipment.

Every Service Express engineer participates in continuous, hands-on learning to provide outstanding support. Our award-winning Aces Development training program incorporates actual service tickets, customer needs, skill sets and historical service data.

For more complex issues, our Advanced Technical Support team provides immediate engineer assistance 24/7. This group of L2 and L3 experts offers additional support to resolve issues for your mission-critical equipment.

Healthcare mergers and acquisitions continue to present ongoing challenges for IT teams. Asset management becomes increasingly important as organizations merge and dedupe data center equipment.

We can provide full inventory audits, including models and serial numbers, for a comprehensive report of the assets in your data center(s). With our warranty tracking, you can quickly review equipment under OEM warranty and track support expiration dates. Warranty tracking and other asset management insights are available in our ExpressConnect® platform.

We also offer decommissioning and asset disposition services to help with your surplus or required equipment needs.

Yes. We provide smart, reliable third-party maintenance and other data center solutions globally.

Utilizing our third-party maintenance solutions as part of your data center support strategy provides more flexibility, improved service and immediate cost-savings without compromising your HIPAA compliance.

If you have any additional questions, please let us know!

Additional resources