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IT Solutions for Healthcare

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Healthcare professionals, throughout the United States, have been learning to manage HIPAA compliance to adhere to industry requirements. One component that the healthcare industry must comply with is the Security Risk Assessment (or SRA), which must be completed annually. The Security Risk Assessment includes, not only your processes and procedures, for managing protected health information, it also includes a thorough review of your IT Infrastructure, including areas such as:

  • Access Controls
  • Business Continuity Procedures
  • Perimeter Security
  • Storage
  • Secure data transmission
  • Patch Management

All of these issues are critical to the security and privacy of your patients’ information, and performing a security risk assessment can be time-consuming and difficult. WheelHouse Solutions’ HIPAA risk assessment team has worked hard to make these assessments as quick and painless as possible so that you can focus on your patients.

What you get

Our risk assessment provides you with a full, audit-ready report, that explains to you where you are at-risk and what changes you can make to reduce the risks. We will run an analysis of your IT environment, including scans that will help you identify where you have protected health information. When we leave, you can feel confident that you have a plan that will keep you in compliance.

Security Risk Assessment FAQs

Who is required to complete an annual SRA?

Any organization that maintains, tracks or, otherwise, has access to protected health data is required to complete an annual SRA, particularly medical professionals, such as chiropractors, dentists, general practitioners and other medical specialists.

Is Security Risk Analysis optional for small providers?

In a word – No. All providers who are “covered entities”, under HIPAA, are required to perform a risk analysis. Additionally, any providers who receive EHR incentive payments are required to perform an SRA, as well.

Is it true that EHR vendors are not responsible for compliance?

While an EHR vendor may be able to provide information, or training, on privacy and security aspects, relating to their product, they are not actually responsible for making their products compliant with HIPAA’s Privacy and Security Rules. It is, solely, the responsibility of the “covered entity” to complete an SRA.

Healthcare is evolving, and you need the technology team to help your organization evolve with it. At WheelHouse Solutions, we’ll assist you at every stage – from HIPAA-compliant infrastructure, including mobile solutions, to real-time access to patient information. Our healthcare IT Solutions, Cloud Services and Managed Services ensure compliance and flexibility, throughout your organization.  Fill out the form on this page or call us at 314-492-2506 for a free consultation.

Five Benefits of Managed Cloud Services

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Managed Cloud Services are helping companies optimize and streamline the management of their mission-critical applications and data. With managed cloud services, businesses can outsource scheduled maintenance, patches, software updates and management of their IT infrastructure, enabling their IT staff to focus on other business-critical objectives.

WheelHouse Solutions provides fully managed IT infrastructure and applications, in cloud-enabled environments. By utilizing our managed cloud services, businesses can enjoy the best of class service, rapidly provisioned hardware, middleware and outstanding support to meet their IT demands.

As one of St. Louis, Missouri’s premier providers of managed cloud services, WheelHouse Solutions also offers cloud hosting services, as well as a team of cloud service specialists to help our customers effectively manage their IT infrastructure.

Managed Cloud Services Options from WheelHouse Solutions

  • Colocation Services that provide reliable, enterprise-class hosting for businesses, ensuring dependable environments to protect and ensure the continuity of business-critical applications, network services, and digital assets.
  • Managed Application & Middleware Server services that offer implementation, configuration, monitoring, maintenance, upgrades and patches for application/middleware servers hosted at WheelHouse data centers.
  • Managed Database Services that include implementation, administration, support, maintenance and data optimization, as well as reliable disaster recovery services.
  • Managed Network Services, including data protection and disaster recovery solutions that minimize downtime, allowing your IT staff to focus on mission-critical needs.
  • Managed Security Services that provides network intrusion prevention and detection, real-time log flow analysis, vulnerability assessments and 24/7/365 monitoring and management.
  • Managed Server Services that provides a scalable and reliable physical server, as well as VM management services that ensure your servers are running at peak performance.
  • Managed Storage Services include reliable and resilience storage capabilities to protect and recover your data more quickly.
  • Managed Web Server Services that include implementation, configuration, maintenance, monitoring upgrades and patches of Web servers hosted within WheelHouse data centers.

Benefits of WheelHouse Solutions Managed Cloud Services

  • Your employees can work more efficiently, focusing solely on your business objectives, rather than on IT related tasks
  • Your company can scale its IT infrastructure, quickly and easily, to meet your current demand, while ensuring that your applications perform reliably in the cloud
  • Managed Cloud Services can lower your IT costs, by reducing or eliminating out-of-pocket expenses, in addition to reducing the cost of heating, cooling, and real estate
  • With Managed Cloud Services your business retains control over your resources, hardware, and bandwidth while outsourcing the problem-solving to the cloud services experts at WheelHouse solutions
  • Your organization can utilize the cloud to ensure security, compliance and operational standards of excellence, within your industry.

WheelHouse Solutions can provide Managed Cloud Services for your business.  We invite you to click here or call 314-492-2506 to request additional information about our Managed Cloud Services. We’ll work with you to develop a solution that will meet your needs now, as well as provide for future growth and flexibility.

5 Tips For Reducing Expenses In Your Organization

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Technology has become an essential factor in almost every business operation and now business owners are looking for ways to reduce expenses in their IT departments, in order to achieve greater efficiency for less money.

To do that, as a business owner, the logical action would be to cut back on your IT costs, but it’s essential to avoid sacrificing efficiency when reducing expenses.  With that in mine, here are the top five tips and tricks to reduce expenses in your business without compromising its efficiency and/or destroying value:

  1.  If you’re a small business owner, try to find alternatives to your traditional telephone service; if you’re using a land-line or a regular cell phone, you can switch to VoIP service and virtual phone lines. There are many options available that provide provide great flexibility and excellent value for the money, not to mention a serious cost reduction when it comes to communications.
  2. Use open source software. This is an excellent alternative to the commercial mainstream applications, especially if you’re a small business. The software related costs may cripple your business, especially in its inception phase, and open source software is very attractive, because it’s free.
  3. Use cloud services, instead of investing lots of money in hardware/software, especially if you’re a small business. Also, you should determine what you really need, the latest high-tech services is not always necessary and it may cost you an arm and a leg. And if you decide to perform an audit of your existing computers, you may find an answer about what’s really necessary for your line of business, hence reducing your technology expenses.
  4. You can try to negotiate with your existing IT contracts because IT services vendors desire to keep their clients happy and on board for as long as possible. Keep in mind that the competition in this area is pretty tight and you can take advantage on that. You can proactively ask for discounts, freebies, cost reductions or even negotiate a customized plan. In the end, it’s important to ask if you want to get any advantages.
  5. Reduce expenses with online business training. Being a small business owner, you can’t afford to travel the world in order to expand your experience, to participate in live training /educational conferences and the like. But, in the Internet era, you can use online business training for you and your employees. There are lots of free online business training programs and you can use them from the comfort of your office or even at home. With these options available for ongoing training, the possibilities for you and your business are endless, and your costs related to training will be significantly reduced.

If your business is looking for Managed IT, Cloud Services, Consulting & Support Services, WheelHouse Solutions has a staff of experienced professionals to deliver outstanding results. We provide cost-efficient managed IT Services, backed by a professional IT Staff, with experience in multiple disciplines. Whether you’re looking to augment your existing IT staff, or if your business wants to outsource all your IT services, we have a flexible solution to meet your needs.  Feel free to contact us at 314-492-2506 or fill out the form on this page and someone will get back with you.