Electronic Health Records were developed to enhance the speed that health care organizations could see patients, get them the care they need, and get paid. With so many moving parts, the EHR would change the face of healthcare, but have they been consistently updated to give patients control over their experiences with their healthcare providers? Not always.  There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that the EHR, while being a platform that could do a lot for a patient, was actually designed to streamline patient care and keep costs from inflating too much. Neither has really worked as costs continue to rise and EHRs aren?t always up to date with all relevant information. Another is a result of cost inflation: many healthcare facilities are being sold to larger healthcare providers and then being dismantled. These mergers and acquisitions dictate that any EHR functionality be consolidated, making cost too prohibitive to innovate. Furthermore, every major EHR system is highly proprietary, making interoperability with other systems a non-starter for many EHR companies.  Regardless of the reasons why innovation isn?t happening, it?s not. There are many technologies that have been developed in the past decade that could be worked into the EHR to give patients more control over their own health data, but without consistent upgrades made to the EHR systems these opportunities are lost.  Governments from all over the world have spent a lot of money attempting to promote the use of the EHR. The thought behind it is intriguing. A digital file where every piece of data that is needed by healthcare providers to give the best patient care, as well as a way to connect insurers into the process to ensure that these providers get paid. During the last economic downturn in 2009, the HITECH Act was passed with billions of dollars going to healthcare providers in order for them to upgrade away from the file folder system that doctors had been using for decades prior. In those 11 years, many organizations that implemented EHR systems haven?t upgraded them. Imagine if you were using a piece of software that was developed 11 years ago? Microsoft just retired Windows 7 support forever. That OS was released in 2009. The point here is that in order for the healthcare system to innovate, it will take an investment by healthcare providers to continue to push the envelope by implementing software that is on the cutting edge, not trying to patch software that should have been replaced three times over.  Modern EHR solutions have some of the most innovative tools right down to active imaging and reporting. There are solutions today using IoT sensors that can tell doctors and nurses everything they need to know about a patient so that their time is used resourcefully. It?s a shame that people are stuck paying some healthcare providers exorbitant costs while they use technology from yesteryear.  If your medical practice is looking to make an investment in their patient?s ability to take control of their health, call the IT professionals at (603) 889-0800 to talk about how we can help you innovate your EHR platform today.

Variables of a Successful Continuity Plan Threat Identification/Remediation Using what is called a threat matrix, you should work to Identify all the threats that could railroad your business. You will want to include any situation that could cause your business to stop. Examples can be as simple as a power outage to major calamities like a tornado ripping your building apart. Your business? threat matrix should list threats (from most to least likely) and what your response would be to each.  Mission-Critical Processes Each business has mission-critical processes that need to be working fluidly in order to do business as usual. These should all be found in a comprehensive continuity plan.  Chain of Command Every business has a leader, management, and subordinates. Knowing who oversees what is crucial when looking to get your business back up and running after an event that knocks continuity out.  Evacuation Plan for Employee Safety Your business? continuity plan should outline a strategy to safely get your people out of harm?s way should some disaster strike your business.   Communication Hierarchy If continuity is broken, people need to know about it. There should be a point of contact for every department on your staff, so that they can contact employees, vendors, and customers if the need arises.   Disaster Recovery Clearly, you?ll need your data if you want your business to continue after an event. Having a disaster recovery plan that includes comprehensive data backup is a major part of getting your technology up and running, should something happen to your business? information systems.   Inventory of Your IT Infrastructure Concordantly, if a situation arises where your IT is knocked out, having an inventory of everything that you have can also be used to procure resources should you need to rebuild. When Is It Over? You will want to have a process in place that signals the end of an incident, and that all ?I?s are dotted and ?T?s are crossed. This will allow managers and employees to know that they can get back to business without worrying about residual negative circumstances. There are no guarantees that the breach of your business? continuity will have a happy ending. What is true is that with a dedicated plan in place, you will have a fighting chance. If you need help putting together the technology resources to support your disaster recovery initiatives, or if you would just like to discuss business continuity with one of our experts, give us a call at (603) 889-0800.

Condition 1: Your Battery Will Degrade Over Time, and Naturally Hold Less Power in a Full Charge While the ones currently being put into smartphones are much better than the ones used in the past, batteries have long been one of the fastest components to fail in smartphones and laptops alike. The timeline of this failure can come as a surprise, too?manufacturers admit that, by the time a year has passed, most batteries will have lost a sizable amount of their available life. Many recommend users to expect a loss of 20 percent after 400 charge cycles. With this knowledge, you can see that it is important to adjust how a device is charged to help extend the lifespan of its battery. Condition 2: Temperature Extremes Can Encourage Degradation A smartphone?s battery capacity can also be adversely impacted by very high as well as very low temperatures. This is a common issue for people who often leave their devices in their cars. With the potential for extreme temperatures on either side of the spectrum depending on where someone lives, the enclosed car only exacerbates these impacts. Keeping a device at a happy medium can therefore help keep the device?s batteries from losing too much potential. Condition 3: You Let Your Battery Run Out of Charge Not too terribly long ago, the prevailing advice for preserving a mobile device battery?s lifespan was to let it get all the way down to zero before you next charged it. More recent innovations in batteries and their internal chemistry have actually made this a bad thing to do for the battery?s longevity. Instead, it is advisable to keep your device?s battery somewhere between 20 and 90 percent. Condition 4: The Screen is Too Bright It just makes sense that keeping your screen turned all the way up would result in a greater draw on the device?s power reserves. However, it can actually harm your battery in the long term as well. Fortunately, both iOS and Android devices now have built-in utilities to help you control your screen?s brightness, but you can also boost it further by manually setting your brightness to the lowest brightness that is still visible. Condition 5: The Screen Stays on Too Long Most modern smartphones feature a setting that turns off the screen if there is no activity registered for a set period, usually ranging between a few seconds to a few minutes. There are also applications that can give you more granular control over this, and some smartphone makers will include extra software to keep unnecessary battery usage at a minimum. Condition 6: You Haven?t Adjusted the On-Board Battery Saver Most smartphones today come with some capability to control how much battery life is taken up by background processes. While this solution might not give you the longevity you would expect from a device that likely cost you over a grand, it can help you to make the most of it. Properly managing your mobile device?s battery can have a lot of impact on how it operates, which in turn can impact your finances. To learn more ways to get more out of the technology that your business relies on, subscribe to our blog, and give White Mountain IT Services a call at (603) 889-0800.

Unifying Businesses Communications Having a strong communications strategy for your business can go a long way. With the options that are now available through the cloud, your business can significantly cut your communications costs by utilizing technologies like Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and video conferencing. Today, there are complete communication platforms that integrate all necessary communications into one easy-to-control solution. This comprehensive platform, called unified communications (UC), combines your business telecommunications and messaging with your web and video conferencing and collaboration. UC delivers an efficiency that your business hasn?t experienced before. Some features include:  Disaster recovery Managed support Thorough analytics Management software integration Regulatory support Global service delivery …and more! Available Technology Below are some of the technologies a UC platform offers: Telephone A powerful and feature-rich telephone system is one of the most important parts of a business? communications platform. A VoIP system uses your organization?s bandwidth to deliver reliable voice services at a substantial cost reduction. Each VoIP platform can offer a whole cache of features, including: Call Management/Auto Attendant Call Queue Call Routing/Screening/Transferring Call forwarding/Voicemail Call Park/Presence/Pulling Call Recording Custom In-Call Music Custom ringtones Do Not Disturb Three-way calling Personalized extensions Find/Follow Me Voicemail services …And much more. Aside from these features, a hosted VoIP platform offers users the ability to use the system on their own mobile phones through the use of a mobile app, effectively making any smartphone a work phone.  Text and Instant Messaging The UC system also integrates a lot of other useful messaging features. Many people would rather get a text than a call. Your organization?s messaging can integrate with other software to provide a useful collaborative option. Video Conferencing Today, having a video conferencing solution is a must. With more people working outside of the office, and with businesses outsourcing work to remote contractors, having a solution to run meetings over the Internet is extremely useful.  Collaboration/File Sharing Collaboration is the name of the game in the information age and a UC can provide a solution for secure file transfer and document sharing.  With integrations with CRMs and other management platforms a UC can make your business be more efficient and productive. To talk to one of our IT professionals about the possibility of integrating a unified communication solution into your business, give us a call at (603) 889-0800 today.

What?s the Exploit and Who Does It Affect? The vulnerability in the CISA?s emergency directive affects all supported Windows Server operating systems. It?s been named Zerologon, and If left unpatched, it could allow an unauthenticated threat actor to gain access to a domain controller and completely compromise your network?s Active Directory services. The vulnerability gets its name because all the hacker has to do is send a series of Netlogon messages with the input fields filled with zeroes to gain access.  Once in, this essentially gives the hacker a lot of control over your network, and it?s a publicly available exploit (since Microsoft has released a patch for it) which means cybercriminals will be taking advantage of it. The attacker doesn?t need any user credentials to use this exploit. If your business network is running Windows Server, you need to have updates applied to your servers to ensure that this vulnerability is patched. If you aren?t actively keeping all the devices on your network maintained with the latest updates and security patches, you are essentially leaving the front door wide open. The Department of Homeland Security (the parent department of the CISA), has issued a directive for all government agencies in the United States that they have until today (September  21st) to apply the patch, to prevent giving hackers control over federal networks. This means all state and local government agencies are required to apply this today and report back to the CISA. Not having this patch installed will also affect other compliance standards throughout other industries, and of course, leave your business and your data at high-risk of a breach. It is highly recommended to apply this patch today, as soon as possible, regardless of the industry you are in. We can?t stress this enough. Apply this patch as soon as humanly possible. The Good News If you have an active managed IT services agreement with White Mountain IT Services that covers the maintenance of your Windows Servers, you have likely already received the patch, or will be having it installed today. The patch was released by Microsoft as part of their August 2020 Patch Tuesday Update. If you don?t have an agreement with us, or you aren?t sure if your agreement covers fixing the Zerologon vulnerability, we urge you to reach out to us by calling (603) 889-0800. This is definitely not something you want to risk. The Department of Homeland Security and the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency don?t issue emergency directives casually. This needs to be taken seriously for all businesses and organizations. If you need help, or you are unsure about how to protect your organization from the Zerologon vulnerability, don?t hesitate to reach out to White Mountain IT Services at (603) 889-0800.