Case Study · Healthcare

Healthcare ITAD Case Study

Client: A 12-hospital healthcare system in the Greater Phoenix area (anonymized for HIPAA compliance).

3,200

Assets Processed

$127K

Value Recovered

100%

HIPAA Compliant

45 Days

To Complete

The Challenge

What the client needed

The client needed to decommission a 200-rack primary data center as part of a clinical infrastructure modernization. The project required strict adherence to HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules, complete chain-of-custody documentation for every data-bearing device, and a hard 60-day completion window driven by the lease expiration on the existing facility.

•200 racks of legacy servers, storage arrays, and network equipment
•ePHI on every data-bearing device — zero tolerance for breach exposure
•60-day deadline with active clinical systems mid-migration
•Multi-stakeholder approval required from Compliance, IT, and Legal

The Solution

How Phoenix ITAD delivered

Phoenix ITAD assigned a dedicated project manager and executed our standard 5-step healthcare ITAD process: signed BAA, on-site asset inventory and tagging, NIST 800-88 sanitization with physical drive shredding for high-sensitivity media, secure transport with GPS-tracked tamper-evident containers, and audit-ready Certificates of Destruction for every serial number.

Signed Business Associate Agreement (BAA) before any device handling
On-site witnessed shredding for all ePHI-bearing drives
Daily progress reports to Compliance and IT leadership
Itemized value recovery on remarketable servers and switches

Engagement Timeline

How the project unfolded

1
Week 1
Scoping & BAA Execution
Site walk-through, asset count, BAA signed, project manager and compliance liaison assigned.
2
Weeks 2–3
Inventory & Tagging
Every device serialized, photographed, and entered into the chain-of-custody portal.
3
Weeks 3–5
On-Site Data Destruction
NIST 800-88 sanitization with witnessed shredding for high-sensitivity drives.
4
Weeks 5–6
Secure Transport & Processing
GPS-tracked transport to R2v3 facility; remarketing prep for higher-value assets.
5
Week 7 (Day 45)
Final Documentation Delivered
Certificates of Destruction, asset inventory report, and ESG impact report delivered to Compliance.

“Phoenix ITAD's project manager was on-site every day. The chain-of-custody documentation was exactly what our compliance team needed for the audit.”

— VP of IT Operations, Arizona Healthcare System

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Frequently Asked Questions

About this engagement

We signed a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) before any device was touched, maintained a serialized chain-of-custody from pickup through destruction, performed NIST 800-88 sanitization with on-site witnessed shredding for high-sensitivity ePHI drives, and delivered Certificates of Destruction tied to every asset tag — exactly what the client's compliance and legal teams required for the audit trail.

No. Every data-bearing device was sanitized or physically destroyed on-site at the hospital before leaving the facility, or moved in GPS-tracked tamper-evident containers under signed custody. No drive containing ePHI ever left client premises in a readable state.

The compliance package included the executed BAA, a serialized asset inventory report, photographic evidence of on-site destruction, NIST 800-88 sanitization records per device, individual Certificates of Destruction, downstream R2v3 processor attestations, and an ESG impact summary.

A dedicated project manager coordinated daily with IT and Compliance, sequencing decommission work around active migration cutovers. Weeks 1–2 handled scoping and inventory, weeks 3–5 ran parallel on-site sanitization crews, and weeks 6–7 closed out transport, remarketing, and final documentation — completing in 45 days, 15 days ahead of the lease deadline.

Only after every drive was sanitized to NIST 800-88 standards (or physically shredded) were remarketable servers, switches, and storage assets routed to our refurbishment and resale pipeline. The client received an itemized value recovery report and a $127,000 revenue-share payment at project close.