Practice management and imaging are the critical path
Everything else can wait an hour. We treat the practice server, the imaging machines and the sensors as the systems that get monitored hardest, and we know what each vendor actually requires rather than assuming.
Patient data has obligations attached whether or not anyone briefed you
Access control, encryption and knowing who logged in are not optional once you hold patient records, and a shared reception login makes all three impossible. Individual accounts are the first change and they cost nothing.
One server in a back room usually runs the whole practice
It has been there for years, it is probably out of warranty, and nobody has restored from its backup. That machine is where we start, because losing it takes the practice offline for days rather than hours.
Growing from one operatory count to another breaks the network
Adding chairs adds imaging traffic, and imaging traffic is what exposes an undersized switch or a saturated wireless link. The symptom is images taking too long to open, and the cause is rarely the software.
Common questions
- Do you work with our practice management vendor?
- Yes, and we prefer to be in the room for upgrades. Most practice software problems turn out to be the server, the network or a permission, which is our half of it.
- Is our imaging data backed up properly?
- That is one of the first things we test rather than take on trust, because imaging is frequently excluded from a backup job somebody set up years ago.
- Everyone uses the same reception login. Is that a problem?
- Yes, because you lose the ability to know who did what, and that is exactly what gets asked after an incident. Individual accounts take an afternoon to set up.
- Can you support us without disrupting clinic hours?
- Yes. Anything disruptive is scheduled early, late or on a quiet afternoon, planned around your diary rather than ours.
- Our insurer is asking about security controls. Can you help?
- Yes. Multi-factor authentication, monitored protection and tested backups are usually what they are asking about, and being able to answer often changes the premium.
- Do you handle HIPAA compliance?
- We put in and document the technical controls a practice needs. Full compliance is broader than IT, so we will be clear about where our part stops rather than implying we cover all of it.
Where we do this
These are the towns where this kind of business actually clusters. We work across the whole 30 mile area, so if you are somewhere else on the list, call and ask.
Start with a phone call
You describe what is annoying you. Fifteen minutes, no discovery-call ritual.
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