Recording a session can serve a lot of different purposes depending on a practice’s specialty and workflow. It might document informed consent for a legal record, support clinical supervision and training for newer providers, or give a patient something to revisit after a complex conversation they may not remember in full. SecureVideo supports two distinct ways to record a session, cloud recording and local recording, and the right choice depends less on which option is more advanced and more on how a practice actually plans to use and store that recording once it exists.
How Cloud Recording Works
Cloud recording stores a session securely in an Amazon S3 vault, SecureVideo’s cloud storage environment built to the same security standard as the rest of the platform and covered under our advanced session tools. Once a session is recorded to the cloud, it can be accessed and shared directly from within SecureVideo, without a provider needing to manage a separate file sitting on their own computer.
For practices that need to retrieve a recording later, whether for a supervision review, a compliance request, or a patient follow-up, having that recording centrally stored and accessible in one place is often more practical than tracking down a file that might be sitting on an individual provider’s laptop. Sharing is also more straightforward: a recording stored in the cloud can be shared securely with a colleague or supervisor without having to transfer a large file through an unsecured channel.
How Local Recording Works
Local recording, available through our Zoom video engine at no added cost, saves a session directly to the provider’s own computer instead of to the cloud. This gives a provider direct control over where the file lives from the moment the session ends, which some practices prefer for internal policy reasons, or simply because they already have their own secure storage and retention process in place and don’t want to introduce a second location for session data.
Local recording also appeals to solo practitioners who may not need the centralized access that a multi-provider practice benefits from, and who would rather keep every piece of a session’s record inside a system they already manage directly.
Weighing the Tradeoffs
Cloud recording tends to make more sense for practices with multiple providers, since recordings are accessible in one place regardless of which provider ran the session, which matters when a practice needs to review a session for supervision, quality assurance, or a compliance request and doesn’t want that review to depend on tracking down whichever provider happened to run the appointment. It also tends to fit practices that need to share a recording with someone else on the care team without transferring a large file manually.
Local recording tends to fit solo practitioners or practices with a strict preference for keeping session data entirely within their own device management, rather than any cloud environment, even a secure one. Some practices also choose local recording specifically because their existing retention policy was built around locally stored files, and it’s simpler to keep session recordings consistent with how the rest of their records are handled.
Compliance Still Applies Either Way
Neither option is a compliance shortcut. Whether a recording lives in the cloud or on a local machine, it still needs to be handled in line with a practice’s retention policy and, where relevant, documented as part of a patient’s informed consent, typically captured up front through E-Documents before the session even begins. A practice choosing between the two options should think through not just where the file will sit immediately after recording, but how long it needs to be kept, who needs access to it, and how it will eventually be deleted.
Making the Choice for Your Practice
Most practices don’t need to pick one option and use it exclusively. Account administrators can set a default recording method while still allowing flexibility where a specific session calls for something different, such as a supervision session that needs to be reviewed by multiple people versus a routine visit that doesn’t. The more useful question isn’t which option is more advanced, but which matches how your practice actually plans to retrieve, share, and retain recordings once they exist.
Contact SecureVideo today to learn more about cloud and local recording options, or get started with a free trial to see which fits your workflow.