As an IT person, I understand the importance of your mission critical information, and the hardware that houses it. I tell my clients on a daily basis “invest in your network”. Some do, and some simply do not have the means to do so. If that is the case, we do our best to keep their systems running, until they can afford to upgrade.
The IT department is not a revenue generator. We don’t bring in cash you can see. Making cuts in IT is not the answer to saving money. That is a recipe to set you up to spend more money that you had planned, and put you in a situation you don’t want to be in. Think about it. How much can a down system cost you? How much can a system that is out of compliance cost you? How about a cheap firewall, or in some cases, no firewall at all? These are things that happen to medical practices every day. Systems go down, devices break, things happen to cause technical malfunctions. This is the way it is when using technology.
What you can do
Invest in your network. Keeping up with your computer equipment will end up saving you thousands of dollars in the long run. Put money into solid hardware, or cloud services. Have good disaster recovery plans and good backups. Provide efficient equipment for your staff to work with. The money you spend each year will decrease (unless you have specific projects) because when you need to upgrade or install something, you won’t have to completely re-do your entire network. An old, slow network will prevent you from installing technology that can actually save you money and keep your ePHI secure. Remember the old phrase “penny wise, dollar foolish”. Invest in your practice. You won’t be sorry.
