Why Should My Independent Emergency Room Use IT Support for Healthcare?

It would be a mistake to think that “managed IT services” is synonymous with “IT outsourcing.” They won’t respond to your independent emergency room’s needs in the same way. With outsourcing firms, you are picking specific services for them to take on. This could include having them run your helpdesk operations. With managed service providers (MSPs), their team of skilled professionals offers a comprehensive range of services. The goal is to take the stress off of you in regard to all of your IT.

Your ER cannot afford to lose precious time by working with support teams that are still learning about your specific technologies. By working with an MSP, you are supplied with immediate knowledge to make your facility’s technology run smoothly. This is because they have experience supporting freestanding emergency center (FEC) and healthcare practice technologies. With that in mind, let’s dig into five major benefits of IT support for healthcare.

Cost-Efficient IT Infrastructure Management

There should be a balance between your MSP’s capabilities and the cost of their services. This is something that should be discussed during the negotiation of your Service Level Agreement (SLA). Because you only pay for what you need, you are able to check off every box that is necessary to your facility. For instance, you may need assistance with setting up IT credentials for rotating staff and training them in IT best practices for cybersecurity. The good thing about MSPs is that you have unlimited expertise right at your fingertips. Their varied range of skills is something that break/fix IT services can’t provide you. Rather than having to pay for one-off services after something goes wrong—which could be much more costly—your ER is able to budget better with IT support for healthcare.

Experience Building and Converting ERs

As a unique facility, your independent ER has unique IT needs. In general, however, ERs require zero network downtime in order to ensure timely data transfers and the protection of patient data. Having Electronic Health Record (EHR) connectivity issues can seriously set you back. But IT doesn’t just play a big role in supporting EHR systems. Your MSP can also support check-ins, billing, and staff management as they make sure that those systems can withstand the growth of your facility. Delivering patient care should be your priority, and you simply cannot do so if your technologies aren’t working. MSPs who have experience in the healthcare industry need to be able to design integrative architectures and implement risk-reduction strategies. Having someone who can customize a program that perfectly fits your independent ER is invaluable.

All-Day Availability for Communication

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that for every 100 people, 40.4 will visit an emergency care facility. Those patients don’t fall victim to injuries and illnesses solely during regular working hours. Your independent ER needs to be running all day, every day to ensure that every patient that walks through your doors is responded to. If something happens to any of your technologies, you should be able to immediately get ahold of your IT support for healthcare. If you are facing an issue within your IT infrastructure, an MSP will be able to use remote desktop support to look into it further. The ability to view your systems from anywhere in the world means you won’t have to wait for someone to arrive at your facility to handle things. Whether you call or submit a support ticket, they should immediately get on the case.

Established Partnership with IT Vendors

As we have come to understand, your MSP should have previous experience with medical interfaces. This will help them as they are reengineering your deficient IT infrastructure. Wouldn’t you rather spend your time focusing on healthcare, rather than determining what tech needs upgrading? You may not even realize that something requires an upgrade. MSPs are especially helpful in this regard because they regularly track warranty and license renewals. This makes for better management of both the equipment itself and IT vendors. Dealing with vendor management on your own can be a challenge. IT support for healthcare will take over every consultation with them since they will be the single point of contact. Overall, working with an MSP will reduce your ER’s operation costs.

Faster Troubleshooting & Resolutions Times

There are many severe IT problems that your ER could face. With the healthcare industry being such a hot target for cybercriminals, any delay could lead to a data breach. The largest healthcare industry data breach occurred in 2020 at Trinity Health in Michigan. 3.32 million individual records had been stolen. This compares to the second-biggest breach at MEDNAX Services, Inc. which came in at just over 1.29 million exposed records. Essentially, letting any issue go on for too long could mean disaster for you and your patients. Your MSP will be able to perform troubleshooting and contact the IT vendors to go straight to Tier 3 support. A good provider of IT support for healthcare. should be able to limit the downtime of your infrastructure and systems. They should also proactively be monitoring them to keep attackers at bay, regardless.

An award-winning IT support for healthcare. company is your independent ER’s chance at success. Look into national providers who can help you whether you are in Louisiana or Oklahoma. Once you have located the right MSP for you, watch as your new partner helps you grow and provide better care. With their flexible services, they will be able to scale along with you for years to come.