Physicians Practice - March 2008 - (Page 49)

TECHNOLOGY LEARN TO LOVE YOUR NERD BY SHIRLEY GRACE HOW TO FOSTER POSITIVE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN YOUR PRACTICE AND THE TECHIES WHO KEEP IT UP AND RUNNING Jay Simmons is responsible for the world — at least within the conﬁnes of Memphis Gastroenterology Group’s IT needs. A five-year veteran at the 11physician practice (which comprises a clinic, endoscopy center, and surgery suite), IT manager Simmons single-handedly runs a lean, mean technical machine, chock full of redundancies and fail-safes. And he takes pride in his work. “My name’s on it,” he says. Simmons’ duties encompass keeping all of Memphis Gastro’s technical tools up and running, IN SUMMARY Given the complexity of today’s healthcare technology needs, medical practices need IT support of some kind. But there’s much to consider when retaining such expertise. You can: • Bring someone on staff and • Hire a qualiﬁed expert; or • Outsource to an IT support groom him to ﬁt your practice’s exact needs; vendor at a lower cost, but give up some control. Whether in-house or outsourced, your IT expert should: • Show competence in the technology necessary to run medical practices; trends in healthcare IT; • Stay up-to-date on the latest • Possess a reasonable knowledge of the operational ﬂow common to medical practices; and and diplomatically. including the phones, practice management system, EMR, and both the on- and off-site data centers. He’s also responsible for hardware and software needs assessments, maintenance, upgrades, backups, disaster recovery protocols, and training. “If someone doesn’t know how to use a mouse, you just show them,” he says. “And if the VPN is malfunctioning, you ﬁx that too.” Someone like this, you want to keep happy. Still, the relationship goes both ways, and you do have choices. Should you address your IT needs in-house, or would outsourcing work better for you? Whatever you decide, here are some ways to develop a strong, mutually beneﬁcial connection between your practice and your favorite IT nerd. A SOUND INVESTMENT • Be able to communicate effectively WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM These days, with even toasters housing microchips, the question is not if you need IT support. You might be pretty tech-savvy yourself — what practice management consultant Rosemarie Nelson calls a “physician enthusiast.” And maybe you really do know how to ﬁddle with your wireless router to make it work. But do you truly have the vision, time, and IT skills necessary to streamline all your technologies so the practice’s data and capabilities are available to the right staff, at the right place, at the right time? This was exactly the problem at Memphis Gastro, says Simmons. “When I ﬁrst started here, we had just a Unix system with the green screens that crashed on a regular basis,” he recalls. Also, the fax server was not working properly, and the staff needed training for its Microsoft products. Simmons addressed those problems ﬁrst. Having someone with broadspectrum IT knowledge on staff can save you big bucks. For example, Simmons proved invaluable when the group went paperless. The practice administrator had already MARCH 2008 | PHYSICIANS PRACTICE | 49 http://WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Physicians Practice - March 2008

Physicians Practice - March 2008 Contents The Bigger Picture: Try a Little Tenderness Second Opinion Letters Physicians Practice Pearls: The Value of First Impressions Noteworthy Cover Story: Your Complete Guide to Patient Service Billings & Collections: Rules to Code By The Administrators Desk: Selecting an EMR Technology: Learn to Love Your Nerd Ask The Experts Coding The Guide The Tech Doctor: All About Blogs The Great Practice Makeover: When Bad Things Happen to Good Practices Start It Up - NEW! The Law: Audits 101 In Practice: Do As I Say... Pretty Please? Healthonomics: Handling the Changes Wrought by Medicare D Classifieds Advertiser Index

Physicians Practice - March 2008

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