| Software in a Cloud |
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| Written by Jennifer Flaten | ||||||||
| Monday, 13 September 2010 13:35 | ||||||||
Increasing revenue while reducing overall costs is the goal of every successful business, including a doctor’s office, unfortunately, physicians often don’t have the resources necessary to do both effectively. For example, while the use of a practice management system greatly improves the practices revenue stream, it often requires a large initial investment in both time and money. So, instead of investing in a lot of new hardware and expensive software,... So, instead of investing in a lot of new hardware and expensive software, many doctors are finding the answer to be as simple as a cloud. Cloud computing requires no expensive investment in hardware, no dedicated IT person to maintain the software and perform updates and most importantly-no software. Everything is provided online by the service provider, the doctor simply logs onto a website and in seconds is navigating a practice management system or electronic health record. For a subscription fee, providers like CareCloud offer a customizable practice management system with all the features necessary to run a successful practice, including billing and collections, faster insurance claim processing and comprehensive financial reports but no hardware or installation necessary. CareCloud also helps doctors increase patient satisfaction with a patient portal that give patients access to patient scheduling and access to their electronic medical record. | ||||||||
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About the Author: Jeff Merron is a full-time freelance editor, journalist, and copywriter who has written for the New York Times Magazine, ESPN.com, Slate, Byte Magazine, Macworld, Consumers Digest, and many other national publications. He's also a regular contributor to IT Business Insider and 108, a baseball magazine. He has a Ph.D. in Mass Communication Research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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There are many pluses to migrating to the cloud. We no longer have to monitor the data backup in the office and bring backup tapes to and from home. The backup is done professionally and at multiple geographic locations. Restoration is tested. We do not have medical data residing in our office the left of which would be disasterous for our business. We are free from the hassle of troubleshooting hardware and network problems. Updates to the software and data (such as drug formularies) is done centrally. No more babysitting upgrades. This particular cloud program runs on its own portal outside of Windows Explorer. That provides substantial protection from hacking. Sage can put their energies into developing a single, excellent product rather than support thousands of installations on various versions, hardware, configurations and platforms.
There have been a few problems. The most important of which is our cable Internet speed. The cloud system currently runs more slowly than the server. However, our cable company offers, for a fee, 3 levels of upgrade on speed. We opted to try the 1st which doubles our download and upload speeds. We'll see the results tomorrow. The top level multiplies it ten-fold.
Also,the software has bugs that are not in the corresponding version of Intergy for servers. However, a newer version of the software is already on the cloud and will hopefully take care of some of the bugs.
I say go for it.