Dr. Lorne Lavine Dental Technology Consultants Printer Friendly Version

Managing In Tough Times

If you read the technology journals and blogs as often as I do, then you’ve probably heard of a new paradigm in network control and security called Managed Services. I’ve started to offer this to my clients but it’s important to understand what it is and why you need it. Much of this information is from a website from another company that does this called NetCanary, but they are all pretty much the same.

Your computers are the machinery that runs your business. Every bit of down time costs you money. Just as dental offices do preventative maintenance to keep their patients’ oral health at a high level, a computer network needs regular maintenance to keep it running smoothly.

If you are not in the business of IT support, then it makes no sense for you to self-manage your network. Using on-call consultants for basic maintenance has also become a costly proposition for most offices. Add to that the delay from the time you notice a problem to it actually getting fixed, and all this extra downtime is costing you money.

Managed Services provides electronic management technology that has changed the way companies can maintain and manage their IT systems. No longer do you have to wait for things to break before your network gets attention. With these systems watching over your network, many problems can be seen and corrected before they impact your staff. Modern automation technology alerts technicians whenever specified events occur on your network, which allows them to directly focus on areas that need attention. Without this automation, a technician would waste valuable time hunting around for possible problems. These systems show him or her exactly where to look.

Thanks to secure remote access capabilities, most problems can be fixed remotely via the Internet. For you this means problem resolution in minutes, not hours! Plus your network security is not compromised. This is an important factor for organizations in regulated industries such as dentistry that have HIPAA regulations.

Patches and updates are released regularly for your operating systems and key applications to fix problems with security and make them run better. Without these updates applied, your software is vulnerable to threats that can damage your systems or, worse, make them available to attackers.

Most Managed Services software contains a sophisticated asset inventory system that tracks every piece of software installed on your computers. The software can automatically identify which stations need updates. Every week your management node will download these updates once and then apply them to all the machines on your network that need the updates. This is far more efficient than you downloading and updating each workstation and server individually. (In most cases, it makes sense to schedule these updates to apply after hours so your staff is not interrupted by the installation process.)

The old way of providing network support relied upon you to call a technician when something broke. Then you waited for someone to come find your problem. There was no telling how long it would take to find and fix it. In this outdated "reactive" support model, you pay when things go wrong. Your IT consultant gets paid when things break down. There is no incentive to make your network as reliable and efficient as possible.

Cost of supporting computers is a common complaint among dental offices. Something goes wrong on your network and the support bills start piling up. How much will it cost this month? Many dentists we’ve worked with in the past commonly agree that the unknown support costs are one of their most aggravating management issues.

Most Managed Services are subscription-based. There is no hardware or software to buy. No staff to hire. You pay a monthly fee based upon your number of servers, workstations and network devices. All monitoring, notification and remote support is done for you. The only extra charges you might pay are for consulting, implementation of new equipment or software or services that are not part of maintaining your existing IT infrastructure.

Lorne Lavine, DMD is the Founder and President of Dental Technology Consultants. Dr. Lavine holds two prestigious certifications, the A+ Certified Technician designation and the Network+ Certified Professional. These designations demonstrate proficiency in computer repair, operating systems, network design and installation. Dental Technology Consultants provides dentists a full range of services relating to the implementation of technology.

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Dr. Lavine can be reached at drlavine@thedentistsnetwork.net.

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