Backup for Healthcare institutions (general care)

Why Healthcare institutions (general care) are extra vulnerable to data loss

What makes healthcare institutions (general care) data a high-value target — and what happens when it's gone

Healthcare institutions (general care) store some of the most sensitive data in their field — including resident care plans | medication records | incident reports. This combination of confidential records, long statutory retention obligations, and day-to-day reliance on software like ONS makes them a prime target for cybercriminals.

Ransomware groups increasingly target organisations that cannot afford downtime — and healthcare institutions (general care) fit that profile exactly. A firm that loses access to its resident care plans cannot operate. Deadlines are missed, regulatory obligations are breached, and clients lose trust. Under NEN 7510, data must be retained for 15 years — meaning a data loss event does not just disrupt operations today, it creates legal liability that extends years into the future.

The risk is not abstract. Care continuity failure, ransomware on care software, loss of resident history and medication records is the leading threat for this sector. Files with characteristics like sensitive personal health data | real-time care administration logs are difficult or impossible to reconstruct from memory once lost. Every day without a verified, offsite backup is a day of unnecessary exposure.

• Healthcare institutions (general care)
• Resident care plans
• NEN 7510

The misconception that costs many healthcare institutions (general care) dearly

"Our ECD is hosted by a certified vendor — we don't need our own backup."

It is easy to understand why many healthcare institutions (general care) believe this. ONS is marketed as a professional-grade platform, and vendors naturally emphasise uptime and reliability. But there is a critical difference between redundancy and recovery. A system can be highly available and still offer you zero protection the moment ransomware encrypts your files or an administrator accidentally deletes a directory.

Synchronisation tools — including those built into ONS — propagate changes in near real-time. When ransomware encrypts a file, that encrypted version immediately overwrites your 'backed up' copy. By the time the attack is discovered, every sync destination contains the same unusable data. This is not a backup. It is a perfectly synchronised disaster.

The practical consequence: without an independent, immutable backup, healthcare institutions (general care) facing a ransomware attack have two options — pay the ransom or start over. Neither is acceptable when NEN 7510 requires you to demonstrate full data integrity to regulators.

What do I need to back up if I use ONS?

The data healthcare institutions (general care) typically overlook when using ONS

ONS manages your day-to-day workflow, but its built-in data protection typically covers only what happens within the application itself. It does not automatically back up your entire data environment — and there are several categories of data that fall outside its scope entirely.

For healthcare institutions (general care) using ONS, the following should be included in any proper backup: resident care plans, medication records, incident reports, staff data. If you also use Nedap, any data in those systems must be covered separately.

Pay particular attention to sensitive personal health data | real-time care administration logs. These file types are either difficult to reconstruct or subject to strict legal retention requirements. A backup strategy that does not explicitly cover them is incomplete — and potentially non-compliant.

• Healthcare institutions (general care)
• Resident care plans
• ONS

What a proper backup actually does

The 3-2-1 rule — and why it matters for healthcare institutions (general care)

The 3-2-1 rule is the baseline standard for data resilience: keep at least 3 copies of your data, on 2 different types of storage media, with 1 copy stored offsite. For healthcare institutions (general care), this is not just best practice — it is increasingly a regulatory expectation under frameworks like NEN 7510.

In practice: your primary production data counts as copy 1. A local backup (on a NAS or secondary server) is copy 2, enabling fast recovery without waiting for a cloud download. Copy 3 is stored in an offsite data centre — physically and logically separated from your main environment, so a fire, flood, or ransomware attack cannot reach all three copies simultaneously.

Mindtime extends this to a 4-copy model, with an additional snapshot stored in a second Dutch data centre. For healthcare institutions (general care) managing resident care plans, this means your data is always recoverable — from a clean, pre-attack restore point — regardless of what happens on-site.

How do healthcare institutions (general care) protect themselves against ransomware?

Specific measures for healthcare institutions (general care) — beyond antivirus

Ransomware attacks on healthcare institutions (general care) typically follow a predictable pattern: initial access via a phishing email or compromised credential, lateral movement to identify high-value data, and then encryption of everything — including network shares and connected backup drives.

The single most effective defensive measure is an immutable offsite backup — one that ransomware cannot reach. Beyond backup, healthcare institutions (general care) should implement: multi-factor authentication on all systems (particularly ONS), regular software updates and patch management, network segmentation to limit lateral movement, and staff awareness training on phishing recognitions.

Critically, a backup is only useful if it has been tested. Many organisations discover during a recovery that their backup is incomplete, out of date, or corrupted. Mindtime performs automated integrity checks on every backup and alerts you if a backup fails — so you know your data is recoverable before you need it, not during a crisis.

How do I create a backup if I use ONS?

A practical guide for healthcare institutions (general care) using ONS

Setting up a proper backup for healthcare institutions (general care) using ONS (and Nedap if applicable) involves more than activating the export function in your software. Here is the practical approach:

First, identify all data that must be retained under NEN 7510 — including resident care plans | medication records | incident reports. Map every location where this data lives: within ONS, on local drives, on shared network folders, and in any integrated third-party tools.

Second, configure Mindtime's agent on each endpoint and server that holds healthcare institutions (general care) data. The agent performs incremental backups continuously, so you are never more than a few minutes behind your last recovery point. Backup frequency, retention periods, and encryption settings are all configured to meet your specific regulatory requirements.

Third, run a test restore within the first week. Verify that resident care plans and other critical data types can be recovered fully and within your acceptable downtime window. Document the process so your team knows exactly what to do if an incident occurs.

Data retention and compliance obligations for healthcare institutions (general care)

NEN 7510 and what it means for your backup strategy

Healthcare institutions (general care) operate under some of the most specific data retention obligations in their field. The primary framework is NEN 7510, which sets clear requirements for how long resident care plans must be kept, in what format, and with what level of accessibility.

Key retention requirements for healthcare institutions (general care):

— 15 years (WGBO)

— 30 years for mental health records (Wet forensische zorg)

Beyond retention duration, these regulations also require that data remains accessible and verifiable throughout the retention period. A backup that cannot be searched, exported, or audited does not satisfy the requirement. Mindtime's backup platform includes point-in-time restore, meaning you can retrieve any version of a file at any point within the retention window — exactly what regulators require during an audit.

Certification under NEN 7510 demonstrates that your data protection processes meet a recognised standard — which regulators and clients increasingly expect.

• Healthcare institutions (general care)
• NEN 7510
• NEN 7510

Five steps to get this sorted

A practical checklist for healthcare institutions (general care) implementing a proper backup strategy

Your questions answered

Frequently asked questions about backup for healthcare institutions (general care)