While healthcare businesses focus on providing medical services, it’s not a secret that they also need to ensure cybersecurity. It’s not enough that you have an antivirus installed on your gadgets or systems; hiring round-the-clock IT support may be a better option.
Here are some of the reasons why you should consider hiring one:
1. Comply With Regulations
One regulation you need to comply with as a healthcare professional is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996. In a nutshell, this federal law aims to protect patients from having their patient health information (PHI) disclosed without their knowledge or consent.
In this law, healthcare providers need to follow national privacy and security standards to protect PHI. The PHI contains data that identifies your patient such as full facial photos, health care information, addresses, Social Security numbers, and the like. When such data falls into the hands of cybercriminals, they can use it for malicious activities like identity theft.
With the help of a managed IT services provider near you, you can ensure that your electronic health records (EHR) platforms are HIPAA-compliant. They can also help you manage the platforms by having strong compliance controls and appropriate governance in your IT infrastructure. And most importantly, they can help provide awareness among your employees regarding EHR issues that may arise. As a result, everyone in your facility knows how to comply with the regulations when handling PHI.
2. Decrease Expenses
When you have an IT infrastructure, you may need to upgrade it after some time. And if you don’t know about these things, you may be buying less quality or less efficient infrastructure. That being said, you need reliable IT support to handle this upgrade.
Since they know which ones are more efficient for your healthcare business, they can advise you on purchasing or upgrading. This can save you future headaches because it can last longer than buying what might not work.
Moreover, if you have round-the-clock IT support, they can immediately gauge if your system requires an upgrade. So, before everything crashes and impedes your operations, you can change it for the better. In case your system crashes, it could affect your profits that day. For instance, you may not be able to process invoices, which will result in losses.
3. Analytics And Integration
Data integration is essential more than ever in the healthcare industry. Aside from EHRs, you’re more likely to rely on automating your daily operations. This includes inventory, staffing, and management automation. The more you rely on automation, the more you need to integrate technology into your business.
For instance, you may be using healthcare customer relationship management (CRM) to engage with physicians and patients. This CRM helps in interacting with your patients by providing satisfaction surveys, patient questionnaires, appointment scheduling, and the like. Especially in billing and administration, CRM is an excellent integration to your business.
However, you’ll need data analytics to weigh which ones are vital and relevant to your services. In addition, big data utilize cases to determine what hospital procedures and protocols are more suitable to target patients. You can also use data analytics to assess patients who have higher chances of developing specific diseases.
With all of these technological needs, you may have to rely on experts. If you can find an IT support that’s well-knowledgeable in technology integration and data analytics, then the better. You can depend on them for their computing capabilities to help you understand what and how to use these innovations. This could result in you focusing on providing healthcare services rather than trying to do all the techy stuff.
4. Improved Patient Safety
As mentioned, HIPAA requires you to keep PHI safe and secure. Again, you’ll need professionals to keep your system secure. An IT support knows how cybercriminals infiltrate systems, so they’d know strategies to combat such actions.
They can even prevent hacking or other cybersecurity threats because part of their responsibility is to monitor your network and system 24/7. In case there are suspected cyberattacks, they can immediately counter them. That way, you can avoid exposing patient data, which could result in lawsuits.
Conclusion
With all of the reasons above, IT support is an essential team to be in your healthcare business. From securing data to keeping you compliant, they can help with the technological needs of your business. What matters next is finding reputable IT support services experienced in providing support to healthcare businesses. Consider the ideas mentioned here as you improve your operations.
