This article is sponsored content brought to you by Teamwork Technology.
Reflecting on the past year and the conversations that have been most prevalent among dental practice owners and practice managers, the topic of cloud practice management systems (PMS) and the requirements has overwhelmingly dominated. Most savvy practice owners understand that there is often more to consider than just workflows and clinical impacts.
From an IT perspective, I love cloud PMS systems for a number of reasons. Primarily, they remove large capital expense cycles from a practice and reduce complexity. As we all know, complexity is the enemy of reliability. That said, there are many practices I would advise not moving to a cloud PMS. This may be due to the personalities of my clients, the stability and access to reliable internet, the age of their hardware, or the dental equipment in the practice.
For the most part, however, a cloud PMS can provide practices with better access to AI, advanced functionality, integrations, marketing tools, and more, and is generally a good option to explore.
Getting into the nitty-gritty of the considerations, let’s start with the most obvious: internet connectivity. Once you move to a cloud PMS, internet access becomes even more critical to the practice. An NBN outage in your area could mean that you have no access to your schedule until it is resolved. We recommend that any practice moving to a cloud PMS have a secondary internet connection as a backup.
This could be another independent technology for larger practices (such as fixed point wireless or Starlink), or a 5G backup device for smaller practices. When paired with the right on-site hardware, downtime during an outage can be reduced to under a minute through automatic failover to the 4/5G device.
There is also a misconception that “I don’t need IT with a cloud PMS.” While it’s true that there is a reduced IT load, there are still many things you need a trusted IT partner for.
First and foremost, any IT partner should provide a basic level of cybersecurity. This includes, at a minimum, antivirus, EDR/MDR, ransomware protection, log monitoring, regular updates, and some form of 24×7 cyber incident response. Practices are increasingly targeted by hackers and scammers. One recent example we have seen involves an email sent to a practice that, when opened, installs a remote access tool. Our system detects this immediately, and our support team responds by isolating the machine and cleaning the system.
Practices should ensure they have systems in place to:
- Protect – Stop threats before they get in (e.g. antivirus, firewalls, spam filters)
- Detect – Identify threats that get past your defenses (e.g. EDR/MDR, log monitoring, ransomware detection)
- Restore – Recover if all else fails (e.g. valid backups, ideally performed daily)
This brings me to backups. Just because you have a cloud PMS doesn’t mean there isn’t valuable data at the practice that needs to be backed up. This can include CBCT images, non-clinical documents (such as processes, employee files, supplier contracts), and legacy PMS systems retained for historical data, to name a few.
There is nothing I enjoy more than helping practices navigate the ins and outs of technology and educating practice owners and managers so they can make informed decisions. Whether you have one chair or 10+ chairs, and whether you are a client or not, I’m always happy to make time to chat about your IT setup and infrastructure.
So, give us a call or, if you’re attending ADX, come visit our stand. We’re always happy to chat.
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