Whether you’re a standalone practitioner or part of a GP super clinic, the IT systems that hold your patient data and enable you to provide healthcare are crucial to your success. More appointments these days are being held on the phone or via video conferencing and this remote transition means that having secure data, strong internet connection and choosing the right hosting scenario are critical.
Have a Business Continuity Plan
Having a well thought out business continuity plan will ensure that you keep seeing patients without having to worry about your IT. Choosing the right hosting scenario (whether onsite or in the cloud) is important for continuity in times of change. The current trend of doctors and healthcare staff performing consultations remotely or working due to COVID-19 means cloud-hosted technology is the best option. This can cut the out complications of connecting into slow and sometimes unreliable on-premises servers. The virtualised nature of the cloud means that creating backup copies of data and server systems can be automated. This means much better availability and data protection than on-premises systems.
Choose a cloud-based phone system
Cloud-based phone systems allow you to run a variety of phone handsets and software apps. This allows you to pick up calls like you’re at work, meaning that no matter where your geographical location is or if you’re put into immediate lockdown, your operating processes will remain virtually the same.
When providing consultation and you’re unable to be physically present at your workplace, cloud-based phone systems allow you to pick up calls like you’re at work, meaning that no matter where you are, you can achieve business continuity.
Cyber and Data Protection
Security needs to be taken extremely seriously in these unprecedented times. Computer virus infections and privacy breaches in a healthcare practice are commonly caused by staff. Clinics need to ensure user education around secure practices regarding passwords and social engineering attacks. Secure email filtering and anti-virus solutions should be implemented to ensure that any outside threats are minimized and access to networks hosting data in the cloud need to be secure.
In summary, it is important to be able to safely provide patient consultation remotely while not compromising the quality of diagnosis due to not being physically present.
Nowadays, the IT systems should be designed in a way that allows medical staff to work between locations accessing the same data seamlessly. Security of data needs to be high on the clinic’s agenda.
Run your healthcare IT system with Xenex Systems
These scenarios can be achieved by running your IT and phone systems securely in a cloud-hosted environment, using public cloud systems such as AWS or Microsoft Azure or using Xenex Systems’ private hosted services on dedicated infrastructure. If you have any questions in relation to this article or require assistance for your IT system, please do not hesitate to contact our colleague Sam Norton at [email protected].
