Healthcare organizations are under increasing pressure to protect patient data while maintaining uninterrupted clinical operations. Ransomware activity continues to target hospitals, regulatory scrutiny is rising, and years of accumulated unstructured data have made security and compliance more difficult to manage. At the same time, many organizations are being asked to modernize infrastructure and prepare for cloud adoption with limited internal resources.
As a strategic technology partner to the New Jersey Hospital Association (NJHA), DāSTOR is working with member hospitals to bring unstructured data under control, strengthen security, and build a more reliable foundation for future AI and analytics. This collaboration focuses on giving hospitals a clearer view of their data so they can reduce risk, curb costs, and move forward with confidence.
Unstructured Data Risk in Healthcare
Much of a hospital’s most sensitive information lives in unstructured form, including clinical documents, imaging files, shared drives, and historical records. These files often remain accessible long after their primary use has ended, increasing storage costs and expanding the attack surface for ransomware and other threats.
When teams lack a complete inventory of this data, several challenges follow:
- Limited visibility into where sensitive patient data resides
- Greater exposure during ransomware and breach events
- Compliance risk from over-retention and inconsistent classification
- Rising storage and backup costs driven by low-value data
Many hospitals already invest in security tools, yet still lack visibility into the data those tools are meant to protect.
Scout™: From Unknown to Understood
DāSTOR’s Scout™ provides healthcare organizations with a complete and practical view of their unstructured data as part of DāSTOR’s broader secure data management portfolio. The platform scans and analyzes data across on-premises and cloud environments, classifying information so teams can see what exists, where it resides, and how it’s used.
By analyzing both metadata and content, Scout™ helps healthcare organizations:
- Identify outdated, redundant, and low-value data
- Classify sensitive data, including electronic protected health information
- Apply defensible retention and deletion policies
- Support HIPAA and HITRUST compliance through automated workflows
- Reduce audit preparation time and ongoing compliance burden
This visibility turns dark data into actionable insight, allowing teams to make informed decisions while maintaining continuity of care and daily operations.
MedGap: Isolating Inactive Data
Visibility alone does not eliminate risk, especially for aging records that no longer need to live on production systems but cannot simply be discarded. Leaving inactive data in live environments keeps it within reach of attackers and adds unnecessary complexity to security and compliance efforts.
DāSTOR’s MedGap solution leverages Scout™ to isolate inactive or low-touch data in a secure, privileged environment that is physically and operationally removed from the primary network. Hospitals can preserve required records, maintain controlled access, and support recovery, while sharply reducing everyday exposure to threats.
Together, Scout™ and MedGap support a practical, layered approach:
- Scout™ identifies which data should be protected, archived, or removed.
- MedGap provides a secure landing zone for inactive data, off the main network.
- Access to that data is restricted, auditable, and aligned with clinical, legal, and regulatory needs.
This approach limits the potential blast radius of ransomware and other security events by ensuring that only essential data remains accessible in production systems.
Outcomes that Support NJHA Members
DāSTOR’s work with regulated industries shows that disciplined unstructured data management delivers measurable gains. Organizations using Scout™ have been able to defensibly delete or archive large volumes of redundant data, significantly reduce storage costs, and streamline their audit preparation cycles.
Within the NJHA partnership, Scout™ serves as the foundation for helping member hospitals protect electronic protected health information, manage unstructured data more efficiently, and establish clearer data governance practices. By improving data quality and reducing unnecessary exposure, hospitals can advance innovation while maintaining a clear focus on patient privacy and system integrity. This work supports NJHA’s broader focus on advancing secure, compliant, and innovation-ready healthcare technology across its membership.
Why Now, What Comes Next
Healthcare organizations are facing a convergence of challenges, including persistent cyber threats, heightened enforcement, aging infrastructure, and growing pressure to modernize. Addressing unstructured data risk is no longer a future initiative. It is a foundational step toward protecting patient information, supporting compliance, and enabling secure digital transformation.
As the NJHA partnership rolls out, DāSTOR is engaging with member hospitals to assess unstructured data environments, identify quick wins, and plan broader remediation efforts. Acting now allows hospital leaders to reduce risk exposure, control infrastructure costs, and lay the groundwork for reliable AI, analytics, and cloud initiatives.
To learn more about how Scout™ and MedGap can support your hospital and to engage with the DāSTOR team through the NJHA initiative, visit www.dastorllc.com.
