Keeping it readable! Pharma is top in digital preservation, says Crown Records Management

In a new survey from data experts Crown Records Management, pharmaceutical industry businesses have come out on top in the preservation of digital data, ensuring it can be read and accessed in the long-term.

The survey, commissioned by Crown Records Management and undertaken by Censuswide, demonstrated the size of the digital preservation problem, which is on the rise thanks to technological advances making previously popular file formats obsolete.

Results of the survey showed that the pharmaceutical industry is further ahead in digital preservation than other sectors with 73% of pharma businesses regularly updating servers, which was the highest across all sectors surveyed. Additionally, half of the pharma companies questioned revealed that they regularly review file formats to ensure it can be read in the future and only 12% of those surveyed had no system in place to preserve electronic data for five years or more.

“These results provide a real insight into what is a compelling topic for all businesses now and in the near future,” emphasized Dominic Johnstone, head of information management services at Crown Records Management.

“Long-term digital preservation hasn’t made big headlines so far but many companies may be in for a shock because the reality is that any information which is 10 years old or more is seriously at risk,” he continued. “The speed at which software and hardware evolves is forcing old formats to quickly become obsolete and there is no guarantee they will be readable in the future.

“It’s good to see the pharmaceutical sector has woken up to this issue. You would expect that to be the case given the importance of data in this field and the strict legal guidelines on how long that information has to be kept. Our survey, for instance, showed compliance, at 89%, was the biggest concern for businesses in the sector.”

With many companies storing information in the cloud Johnstone stressed that despite the belief that this information is safe there is no consideration about whether or not it will be readable in 10 or 20 years’ time.

“Although the results of the survey are encouraging and certainly better than average, the fact that 12% of pharma businesses do not have a system in place to preserve electronic data stored for more than five years is a concern,” he warned. “The figure in the facilities management industry, for instance, was 0%. There is still work to do.”