Dental care and business technology have more in common than you might think.
By Herb Miner III
From the Summer 2017 Journal of the Colorado Dental Association
Dentistry has long been proud of its standing as one of the most “proactive” professions, working to improve patients’ lives and future through preventative care. The goal of that proactive care and management is to keep the patient’s mouth at optimal health and prevent health issues before they can start. Dentistry has long been proud of its standing as one of the most “proactive” professions, working to improve patients’ lives and future through preventative care. The goal of that proactive care and management is to keep the patient’s mouth at optimal health and prevent health issues before they can start. Managed Service Providers (MSPs) pride themselves on offering proactive management and care for your business technology for the same reason: to cure minor information technology (IT) issues before your system gets sick.
Practices seeking reactive or “break/fix” care take action only when a situation forces them into action. By waiting for bad things to happen and by failing to anticipate the future, reactive businesses put themselves behind the eight-ball, competitors and at risk.
When a patient comes to you with a dental problem, you don’t just treat the problem at hand and send them on their merry way, do you? Of course not. You complete a full exam, discuss the chief problem of concern as well as any others you find. You make the patient aware of contributing factors, suggest changes in home care and diet, and schedule maintenance to reduce or eliminate preventable future problems. Preventative care takes a proactive approach to dental health. This proactive approach helps your patient to maintain a beautiful, healthy smile while allowing you to identify trouble before it becomes a major problem. With proactive dental care, dentists can guide patients through the future and help them keep smiling.
Proactive IT care is as essential to overall systemic business health. The primary goal of proactive IT care is to do a thorough “exam” to help business “patients” achieve and retain a healthy, secure network and enjoy all of the benefits that go with it.
5 Benefits of Proactive IT Care
- Save Money. Toothpaste and dental floss are relatively cheap compared to the cost of a major dental procedure. The same goes for the proactive tools of IT. Proactive IT can spare a business unexpected significant expenditures, costly downtime, and the negative impact on patient/client relations in the event of system failure or data breach.
- Save Time. Daily brushing and flossing can save a lot of time and inconvenience down the road. Similarly, proactive monitoring and patching will optimize a network for peak performance, help businesses avoid costly network vulnerabilities, and eliminate costly downtime. Dental practices enjoying proactive IT care will run smoother and more efficiently allowing them to focus on what’s paramount, their practice and their patients.
- Improve Security. Fluoride helps protect teeth from cavities, much like security patches secure networks from malware and other threats. By applying hardware and software security patches in an automated fashion, MSPs can protect systems against malicious attacks and improve overall security. Taking time to locate and patch vulnerabilities that can compromise a network’s infrastructure integrity ensures that steps have been adopted to prevent future attacks and reduce the likelihood of a security breach and problems that come with it, like data theft (PHI), data loss, reputations issues, or even legal penalties.
- Be Happy and Smile. Patients receiving proactive care avoid large unexpected problems and describe high levels of satisfaction with the approach. The same can be said for practices employing proactive IT care. Since issues are dealt with before they become problems, these practices experience peace-of-mind.
- Be Healthy and More Efficient. Whether you are not feeling well due to dental issues or your network is “sick” due to system malfunctions or viruses, even routine tasks can take considerably longer than usual. By being proactive and keeping health as a crucial focus, you will be happier, healthier, and more efficient.
Become a proactive organization and stay a step ahead of your competition. While they’re wasting time trying to fix a broken system and falling short of supporting their patients’ needs; you’ll be in the forefront, focused on your business and your patients.
About the Author: Herb Miner is the president and founder of Complete Technology Solutions. Herb has launched 35 space shuttle missions and 12 satellites into space. Working on programs for NASA, the Department of Defense, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Lockheed Martin Space Ops earned Herb the coveted Spaceflight Awareness Award. Herb has a B.S. in computer systems engineering from the University of Arkansas and graduated Beta Gamma Sigma with an M.B.A. in management of technology from the University of Houston. Contact him at 877-287-7762, herb.miner@systemconfidence.com or visit systemconfidence.com.