Healthcare Practices need Reliability and Security
Most Dental and Physician's offices use their network for scheduling, billing, and now for clinical work. This trend is accelerating as the move to EMR (Electronic Medical Records) is pushed by the Federal Government. The key elements for these clients are Reliability and Security of their networks.
If the Network is down, so is the Doctor.
Once everything in the practice is on the computer system, the entire practice can grind to a halt if the network goes down. Reliability is critical to delivering good care in a timely manner. EMR systems can improve efficiency in the practice, but only if they are running. Batchnet designs networks for the high reliability demands of this environment.
We recommend a UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) on every network device: Servers, Switches and Routers, and all the Workstations. Without these, your data can evaporate with a blink of the lights.
We recommend a backup data set be stored both locally and remotely, and that the backup datasets be updated very frequently. It is easy to re-enter data from a paper invoice, but how do you recover the xray of that tooth you extracted two hours ago?
Network Security under HIPAA
HIPAA is the standard for good Network Security in healthcare. Your HIPAA Manual lists the things you have promised to do to safeguard the privacy of patient data. Batchnet works with our healthcare clients to design a secure network and then document it properly for HIPAA compliance.
We recommend a hardware firewall on every network connection touching the "outside world". This includes the WiFi network in the waiting room that is sharing your Internet connection. Most SoHo grade routers do not have this feature, so the waiting room is on the same network as your Patient Data. This was one of the reasons we developed our KatieGate line of routers.
We recommend caution with any WiFi system accessing patient data. The only wireless security system we consider adequate is the WPA method and then only using a 20 digit encryption key. All the other common methods are too easily compromised. We'll be glad to share the documentation on this issue.