it solutions · Page 9 of 12

IT Support for Medical Practices: Are You Prepared for Data Breaches?

it support for medical practices When you’re faced with the ever-increasing threat of cyber attacks, the only way to protect your medical practice is to develop a comprehensive data security program.

Along with the sensitive data collected by most businesses, such as names, addresses and bank account information, medical practices are also responsible for safeguarding a wide variety of private patient data, ranging from current medications to history of illnesses.

Medical practices must at the very least meet HIPAA guidelines for protecting patient information and complying with certain standards for electronic data security.

As discussed in a recent article from Diagnostic Imaging, part of your cyber security program should also include a response plan to a data breach. If your system experiences an unauthorized intrusion, how would you react? Do you have strategies in place for containing the damage from the intrusion? Do you have reliable ways of detecting a breach, along with employees who have the expertise to respond effectively? Who would you notify?

Working with IT Professionals

IT professionals with experience assisting medical providers and healthcare companies can help your medical practice develop a powerful cyber security program.

This program would include technological safeguards against data breaches and reliable IT support for system monitoring and maintenance; the IT support personnel you work with would also respond quickly and effectively should a breach occur. Furthermore, your cyber security program would involve training your employees in safe practices to better protect your patients’ data.

Medical providers remain an attractive target for cyber criminals. When working with IT experts, you reduce the chances of experiencing an embarrassing, damaging data breach and violating HIPAA standards.

If you’re looking for powerful and trustworthy IT support for medical practices, don’t hesitate to contact us.

How Managed Services for Medical Practices Differ From That of Businesses

Managed service providers are an increasingly common and sought after amenity for businesses, as they specialize in all things IT. Companies often utilize managed services so they can put more focus into their services, rather than being blindsided by servers crashing, hardware and software malfunctioning, or their website going down. While these should all be of concern to any practical business, medical practices often require a more specific and specialized service provider.

Managed Services for Medical

Here are several ways in which managed services for medical practices will and should differ from that of a typical business.

Ensure You’re in Compliance with HIPAA and HITECH

All medical practices must abide by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH). Not being in compliance warrants severe consequence. Individuals often lose their license to practice medicine, and practices can be fined heavily. A good managed service will make sure all your equipment complies with HIPAA and HITECH.

Familiar with the Systems Your Practice Uses

Whereas hardware and software implemented within businesses are often not too complex, the systems medical practices implement can require pundit knowledge. Any managed service your medical practice uses should be familiar with these systems and be able to offer business-specific advice about them, along with providing regular upgrades when necessary.

Prioritized Patient Privacy

The seriousness of patient files being lost or leaked can not be stressed enough. Your practice’s managed service provider should be accustomed to email encryption and be capable of secure medical record transfers when referring patients to physicians.

There are many reasons why it’s important to find a managed service provider specific to your business or practice.

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Top 3 Features a Managed Service Provider Should Provide to Your Business

A managed service provider manages all or part of your IT infrastructure. It is becoming quite popular among businesses in all types of industries to outsource technology management to a managed service provider.

Managed services can provide your business with access to enterprise-level technology, expert IT knowledge and support at a huge cost savings. Did you know that outsourcing converts fixed IT costs into variable costs and allows you budget effectively? In other words, only pay for what you use when you need it.

With the variety of managed service providers to choose from, it is difficult to decide who will be the best fit for your business. The biggest question being what will you get for your money?

There are a few key elements every managed service provider should offer. Keep the following in mind to help ensure your business receives the best of what managed IT services has to offer.

24/7 Monitoring

You can expect all managed server providers to offer some form of network monitoring. However, your service provider should monitor more than your servers and workstations. They should also monitor networked devices like firewalls, routers, and other important infrastructure.

Data Backup and Recovery Plan

When disaster strikes, your business could suffer significant data loss. Without a proper data backup and recovery plan, it is difficult and sometimes impossible to recover from major data loss. Your managed services provider should offer a solution that is best suited to your business.

They should backup your data on a regular basis and test your recovery plan often in order to make any necessary adjustments.

On-site Support

Although many managed service providers can handle most IT support issues remotely, there are some instances when an on-site IT technician can offer the best support. Having a managed service provider that is local is ideal for providing on-site support.

A technician can provide training on new software or troubleshoot issues on workstations. Your managed services provider should have enough staff to ensure you have on-site support when you need it.

When it comes to protecting your network, you want the best features at an affordable price. Our managed service provider agreement includes IT support and management for businesses of all sizes.

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Why Network Audits Should Be a Regular Part of Your Network Support

According to this recent article, network auditing is the collective measures done to analyze, study and gather data about a network with the purpose of ascertaining its health in accordance with the network/organization requirements.

In order to maintain the safety and security of your network, it is important to have regular network audits included as part of your network support plan.

What is Network Auditing?

Network auditing allows IT technicians to study and analyze all of the information on your network. They can test the effectiveness of your network and identify any potential security issues that could damage your system. Once these details are found, any necessary changes are immediately made and your network is continuously monitored.

What Does Network Auditing Involve?

The network auditing process involves a network administrator mapping all computers on the network, including all of the software on each computer. The administrator inventories the software and checks for any delays or malfunctions.

After auditing of all computers and software, the network administrator can then move on to auditing all other network devices. These devices can include items such as routers, mobile devices, fax machines, and any other devices connected to the network.

The network auditing process is usually completed after auditing the network devices. All data is then analyzed by an administrator.

How a Network Audit Keeps Your Network Safe

A network audit can alert a network administrator to any changes on the network. For example, if a staff member installs unauthorized software that could cause harm to the network, the change is immediately reported.

Network audits also help with personal devices your staff may use in the workplace. Often times, staff do not take proper security measures with their own devices. The lack of security on personal devices could negatively impact your network.

Network auditing is an important part of network support. It is natural for changes to occur as new users and devices are constantly added to the network. Regular network auditing helps to ensure any potential security threats are quickly resolved before they can escalate into major problems.

Contact us today to schedule a free consultation. Our team of qualified computer and network engineers develop preventative, proactive, and reactive solutions for any IT environment.

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The Benefits of Office 365 for Business

Switching over to the new Office 365 cloud comes with some excellent features and benefits. The top benefit is that your company can continue to use the software that it has been happily using for years because the burden is now shifted over to Microsoft. It becomes less worrisome. Due to the shift, there are quite a few other benefits.

What are the benefits of using Office 365 for business?

For starters, you can work with what you know because Office 365 hasn’t changed any of your favorites. Microsoft took note that users don’t necessarily want to give up their comfort zone. The only real change is that they are connected to the enterprise software out in the cloud. Everything else has remained the same so there’s nothing too new to learn. You can continue working without the need to learn anything new which saves time and money which can be great for any business.

Due to the fact that Microsoft is now taking on the full responsibility of security and reliability, your IT team can finally rest a bit and go about some more important things like giving tips to employees on how to get the most out of this software.

Microsoft is also aware that its users may not be completely comfortable with allowing them to do all the heavy lifting so they have provided extensive service level agreements to help put you at ease.

If you were to have any questions, they can help answer them. You may also contact us with any questions regarding this article.

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