TekHattan, a managed it services provider, offers IT services to healthcare professionals and doctors across the United States. TekHattan specializes in companies with 10-200 employees. There are many reasons why medical offices of all sizes should outsource their technology support. Below, the advantages of outsourcing your Tech Support to TekHattan are discussed. The main reasons to outsource your IT are for network and computer security, data redundancy and protection, and finally the ease of which support is delivered to employees.
Network and Computer Security
Medical offices are a top target for cyber criminals. Every year, thousands of patient records are stolen from medical providers nationwide. Some of the most significant data breaches in recent years targeting the healthcare industry include:
- The Augusta University 2017 data breach in which 417,000 patient records were compromised.
- A phishing attack which occurred in June 2018 that targeted Legacy Health and 38,000 patient records were stolen.
- The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service was breached, 93,689 patients were impacted with their records being stolen in 2018.
It is no secret that most medical professionals are not IT professionals. In all the cases outlined above, these companies/agencies likely had sizable IT security budgets. This goes to highlight that every medical firm is vulnerable with cyber thieves becoming more sophisticated in their attacks. Smaller medical firms are more vulnerable. They often have no cyber security measures in place, leaving an open door to their patient records which can be easily exploited by criminals.
How TekHattan can help with your Network and Computer Security
The reality is, most healthcare providers are unprepared for cyber threats and do not have a security plan in place. With every new client that TekHattan takes on, we conduct a review of their current network and implement a security plan that will help your office stay protected against cyber threats.
Everybody working in the healthcare profession knows that a HIPAA breach can have serious consequences. The TekWatch solution by TekHattan allows our team to proactively manage your computers and server within your office. From our office, we ensure that the latest Windows security updates have been pushed. Additionally, each device on your network will have managed security protection included. This means if a virus does end up on a computer, our team will know about it and can ensure prompt removal.
Data Redundancy and Protection
Ransomware is a major ongoing threat to the healthcare industry. Last year, Hancock Health paid hackers $55,000 to unlock their systems following a ransomware infection. Even though Hancock Health thought their systems were secure, the hackers exploited an open port which was used by one of their vendors. This shows that hackers today are very motivated to find any open loophole which can be used to penetrate a network. With smaller offices, the IT vulnerabilities are many. This means that essentially any hacker could penetrate most smaller healthcare offices without much effort.
How TekHattan can help with data redundancy and protection
Data redundancy and protection is perhaps more important than securing your systems in the first place. Data could be lost in many ways including hacking attempts, accidental file deletion, and power outages/drive failures. TekHattan will recommend and implement a data protection solution that will keep all your files backed up locally and in the cloud. Secure file backup is the only way to ensure your patient data is safe against disaster.
How TekHattan Support is Delivered
TekHattan’s help desk is staffed 24/7/365. This means that whenever an employee needs assistance, help is a phone call or email away. In most cases, our technicians can connect remotely to your computer immediately to resolve your IT issue. In the case that you need a technician to respond on-site to your office, we offer this support nationwide.
For our managed clients, emergency on-site support is delivered within two hours. Our remote support is delivered within 15 minutes for emergency issues. TekHattan’s help desk services allow you to focus on your business while our professionals deal with the IT pains. Furthermore, each account will have a senior technician to work with on their long-term IT needs. This will ensure we are constantly preparing for the future of your business.
Wrapping Up
The Internet turned 36 this January. However, many forget that the Internet was not designed with security in mind. Every business today is connected to the Internet. Most healthcare providers are now using electronic health records to make their business more efficient. However, we must not lose track of IT security. Cyber criminals are out working day and night to steal your patient data. It is imperative to hire a professional IT company such as TekHattan to provide tech oversight for your business. If multibillion-dollar health systems are vulnerable to attack, hacking a smaller healthcare practice with no IT oversight is comparable to stealing candy from a baby. Reach out to us today to discuss the IT needs of your healthcare practice.
