See my blog post on MoveToEMR.com and read the PC World Article.

Nevada State Bank and EHR Nevada have partnered together to bring you this exclusive EMR web event: An interactive web event with expert advice and recommendations on choosing the most efficient EMR system for your medical practice. What is EMR? How do I choose an EMR System? How do I receive incentive payments of $44,000 or $64,000 per physician? Are you asking yourself these questions? If so, then this web event is essential for you and your medical practice. Join us to understand the benefits of the EMR platform and the importance of choosing an EMR system that is the right fit.
Scheduled Speakers include: Russell Suzuki, Russell Suzuki, Co-chair of EHR NEVADA and CEO of Certified Healthcare Systems, a local provider of EHR Software and Hardware solutions including the Allscripts MyWay EMR and Billing system. Leo Bletnitsky, CEO of Las Vegas MED IT has over 15 years of IT and security management experience with a primary focus on Health Care IT. He is currently a certified EMR Partner with GloStream. Leo’s company is an outsourced IT department for practices with existing systems as well as those moving toward an EMR solution. Robert Gordon, Finance Officer at Nevada State Bank, offering finance options with several customized options for Electronic Medical Records financing. Keith Parker, Nevada HIT Operations Director for HealthInsight, a non profit organization that will help over 2,500 medical professionals adopt and effectively use electronic medical records to achieve “meaningful use” in Nevada. Rebecca Neaman, President and founder of Southwest Healthcare Management, is a nationally recognized healthcare consultant. Rebecca has more than 25 years of experience and was recognized by In Business Las Vegas as Health Care Headliner and Practice Manager of the Year for 2009 Click Here to Register Now EHR NEVADA is a vendor-neutral joint educational initiative co-organized by the Southern Nevada Medical Industry Coalition, Clark County Medical Society, and the NV Chapters of the Health Information Management Systems Society and the Medical Group Management Association.

]]> http://www.LVMedIT.com/2010/06/03/nevada-state-bank-sponsored-emr-webinar/feed/ 2 http://www.LVMedIT.com/2010/04/29/police-medical-records-and-criminal-reports-found-on-digital-copier-hard-drive/ http://www.LVMedIT.com/2010/04/29/police-medical-records-and-criminal-reports-found-on-digital-copier-hard-drive/#comments Thu, 29 Apr 2010 20:28:32 +0000 leo http://www.LVMedIT.com/?p=260 Read my blurb about data security and the CBS report about the above:

Today, a lot of the discussion about EMRs is about the economic stimulus or about certain functionality, or about research that shows X amount of doctors are buying, or aren’t buying.  It isn’t very often that anyone talks about EMRs saving lives.  The truth is, however, that they do and that’s a powerful reason for any doctor to implement a new system.  When doctors ask me why they should purchase an EMR I generally talk about productivity and efficiency gains but I also share the following true story.

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http://wap.crn.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=222300868

1. Tighten Up Your Security
2009 was a banner year for viruses, spyware, and spam. Now is the time to think how well you and your network are protected. Many offices are still using residential grade equipment, such as a Linksys home router, to act as their interface to the outside world. Simply be replacing those devices by a true firewall with comprehensive security you gain a whole host of security services and protection. Gateway anti-virus and anti-spyware will help protect your network by scanning everything coming in from the Internet. Also firewalls and intrusion detection will help protect your network from external threats.

2. Rethink Wireless Security
Chances are, you set up your Wi-Fi router in 2004 and haven’t given it another thought since. Well, in case you missed it, ye olde Wi-Fi security is hopelessly broken: WEP was cracked years ago to the point where breaking into a WEP-secured network is a matter of trivial simplicity. Upgrade to WPA2 if all the devices on your network support it, and seriously consider replacing anything that doesn’t support the current wireless security standards.

3. Get Serious About Backup
If you’re still delegating a staff member to haul tapes to and from the office for disaster recovery, it’s time for an upgrade. Consider online backup services, especially for your most critical data. We offer an off-site backup solution that can automatically take care of your backups, keeping them in a secure data-center protecting you against accidental deletion, fire and theft, and allowing you to get your servers up and running in the Cloud in the case of a hardware failure or disaster..

4. Set Up a CRM System
Now more than ever, it’s important not to let sales leads languish and die. Installing a CRM system can really help sales teams prioritize selling efforts and follow up at appropriate times. CRM’s acronym makes it sound daunting, but most customer relationship management systems are surprisingly simple to master.

5. Investigate VoIP
It may not be time to migrate the whole company to VoIP and dump the traditional analog system, but it is certainly time to begin invesitgating. VoIP systems are more flexible than traditional analog systems and can provide new features your existing setup might not have.

6. Test and Upgrade UPS Devices
If you think your wireless router is neglected, imagine how the UPS devices in the office feel. Often these battery-backup systems are purchased add-ons to newly bought PCs (and sometimes they come for free as promotional giveaways), and they’re promptly plugged in and forgotten, left to grow old under an increasingly thick layer of dust. The problem is that many UPS devices don’t put out enough power for the machines connected to them, as users frequently treat them like power strips instead of backup devices.

Carefully check the wattage ratings on your UPS devices and compare those numbers against what you have plugged in to make sure you aren’t exceeding the supported capacity. Be sure to install automated shutdown software if you haven’t already, and arrange a schedule to test the systems to ensure that they still work.

7. Clean Up the Mess in the Server Room
Cables sprawling everywhere (unlabeled, naturally). Dust accumulating in every crevice. Look under the pile of old CRTs, and you’re likely to find a rat’s nest–or worse. Most companies lock the janitorial staff out of the server room, but it’s one of the places in the office that can benefit the most from old-fashioned cleanliness and organization. Take a slow day when most of the staff is out and spend a little time organizing and labeling spare parts, dusting out the servers, and otherwise tidying up. You’ll be much happier once the clutter is cleared. Plus dust and debris can impact the reliability of your most critical IT components, your servers.

The answer is an absolute yes. There are a number of benefits to you, your doctor and society when a high quality EMR’s is used. Some of these benefits are:

For you:

• Your doctor can track and plot your progress.
• The doctor can find information faster and therefore is able to more accurately diagnose your ailments.
• With e-Prescribing (which is part of all quality EMR’s), not only will you not have to wait at the pharmacy as long, there is a much smaller chance of misprescribed medications and misread dosages.

For your Doctor:

• Typically a physician is able to increase his patient volume by 10-20% while improving quality and satisfaction.
• Elimination of the cost of the paper charts, staffing cost to pull and file them and the real estate needed to house them.
• The elimination of the cost of transcription which ranges from $500 to $2000 per month.

For Society at Large:

(In order to be truly effective, the majority of medical practices will need to run a high quality EMR, and these EMR’s will need to be able to connect to a health information exchange (HIE))

• Reductions in the huge cost of medical errors
• Reduction in redundant medical tests between specialties that a patient may see during the course of care.
• Better coordination of care between different specialties.

In summary, encouraging your physician to move to an EMR will benefit everyone.

Learn about the major costs associated with maintaining and supporting PCs and the six ways in which a PC refresh can benefit your business. 

1. Save on repair costs
For most businesses, it’s best to replace aging equipment rather than repair it. 

Maintenance costs on PCs more than three years old can run nearly two and half times higher than on a new PC [1]. From software crashes to hard drive failure, a lot can go wrong as a computer ages. 

2. Increase productivity
When your computers work more efficiently, so do you and your staff. Faster processors, such as the Intel® Core 2™ Duo and Intel® vPro™ technology can operate up to six times faster than a three-year old Intel® Pentium® processor. In the case of an Intel® VPro™ PC, users experience 32 percent less system downtime.

With a newer PC, you also can multitask up to three times faster. For example, a new Intel® Centrino® 2 P8600-based notebook can compress a video, convert a document to PDF and perform a virus scan continuously in the background 30 percent faster than a two-year-old Intel® Centrino® 2 T2700-based notebook. Even simple Microsoft Excel calculations are two times faster.

3. Ensure security 
A big part of downtime and subsequent productivity loss is due to security issues. A four-year-old PC will have 53 percent more security incidents than a PC in its first year. Incidents include viruses, service denials and network attacks. Additionally, it costs more to resolve security issues in older PCs, especially when a business has a lot of variability in the hardware it uses [2]. IT staff must deal with: 

• Ever increasing exposure to malware
• Complexity related to the build-up of applications over time
• Systems that don’t have the memory to support new software upgrades (like Windows 7 which was just released)

In fact, fixing security issues in a new PC costs half as much as that in a five-year-old system. New PCs deal with security threats better as well. Most have built-in technology to improve security, such programmable defense filters and tools that automatically isolate an infected PC from the network before it can infect other PCs.

4. Reduce energy use
With PCs making up for 40 percent of a company’s average utility bill, an upgrade to newer, more green PC can seriously improve your bottom line. Improved energy efficiency can also help your company meet local, state and federal energy compliance regulations. 

Many new desktops and laptops are ENERGY STAR® 4.0 qualified. ENERGY STAR 5.0 is also now available on select machines and this means power supplies are up to 85 percent efficient, and idle wattage times meet certain energy-efficiency standards.

5. Go mobile 
If you’re wondering how to maximize your investments in upgrades, going mobile is a good place to start. If you are like the more than 50 percent of small businesses and 90 percent of medium-sized businesses that report having employees who travel four to five times a month for business, mobility is no longer a luxury. 

6. Improve your image
Finally, new technology can do a lot to grow your business and help you to attract more customers through improved business processes and efficiencies. These enhancements can:

• Streamline your online sales
• Increase communication and contact with your customers
• Make it easier to access and process information 

“A White Paper Cost of Maintaining PCs.” Techaisle. Q1 2009.