The healthcare industry is embracing the use of electronic health records (EHRs). It advances a new type of data management system that aims to improve on traditional paper-based ways. But will it?

What is an electronic health record?

An electronic health record (EHR) is an individual’s official health document accessible via mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, and shareable between multiple facilities and agencies.
Typically, an EHR includes contact information, allergies, family history, list of medications, information regarding previous surgeries and procedures, and other relevant patient information.

How EHRs improve patient care

EHRs improve patient care in significant ways. For one, they can aid in diagnosing patient illnesses based on past history and the patients’ complete health information. EHRs can also help reduce medical errors and false positives. Records can also be updated to provide last known information to the provider at the point of care.

Lastly, EHRs can also improve overall public health by providing a bird’s-eye view of the overall health of an entire patient population. This lets providers identify risk factors that most impact the patients and proactively prepare for potential outbreaks or illnesses.

The big debate: EHR vs paper records

The long-standing debate of digital versus traditional data storage has expanded to every industry, and healthcare isn’t spared from it either. While most agree that EHRs offer more benefits in comparison with paper records, EHRs themselves are not without drawbacks. Below are some of the major differences between paper and electronic records.

1. Time. EHRs can save emergency care providers time during a patient's visit. And in case of emergency, these records can provide critical, life-saving information. However, experts in the field find that the learning curve in using EHRs is too steep and reduces healthcare providers into becoming data entry staff. And all the typing, clicking, and pointing have caused physicians to become distracted from their patients.
2. Environment. One of the most obvious benefits of going digital is the reduction of adverse environmental impacts. A typical patient’s medical record usually encompasses close to hundreds of pages and might even run into the thousands in the most extreme cases. On the other hand, turning to digital solutions saves paper, trees and other resources used to make paper products.
3. Security. Paper records can be compromised in two ways: by being misplaced or getting stolen (in the unlikely event of a break-in). EHRs, on the other hand, are at risk due to the increasing prevalence of cyberattacks. Recent years, in particular, have been rough for the healthcare industry, as evidenced by the occurrence of numerous cybersecurity and data breaches involving thousands of medical records.
4. Cost. Large healthcare providers often have to pay large sums of money to purchase, install, and gain full access to EHR systems. Maintaining paper records, by contrast, requires only human administrative costs and storage costs.
5. Access. One of the biggest gripes against paper records is that they are incredibly tedious to access and share. Obtaining a paper record involves first having to find it — possibly within a mound of files — and then either mailing, faxing, or scanning the copies. Sharing EHRs, on the other hand, is much easier; patients and medical personnel can access information via an app or by sending a photo via a secured network.
6. Illegibility. A physician’s penmanship is often tough to read and decipher, and very easy to misinterpret. Paper records are also notorious for not providing enough space for a physician to jot everything down legibly. With EHRs, notes can be typewritten without regard for space, reducing concerns regarding illegibility.

EHRs in the future

Experts on the subject seem to believe that EHRs need to evolve a little more before being fully accepted and integrated by all healthcare institutions. Some changes include:

• Reducing the data entry burden
• Including remote monitoring
• Increasing transparency
• Increasing room for patient engagement

Despite these, we can still expect EHRs in the future to eventually have more in-depth content and provide a more layered representation of a person’s history. Over time, this will lead to better diagnosis of patients and more accurate prescription of medicine.

Would you like advice on the best EHR systems in the market or on how to implement these EHR systems? Look no further and let our experts guide you. Call today.

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If you have an older Mac, it probably has a hard disk drive (HDD) for storing your data. Newer models, however, have a solid state drive (SSD), which has become the standard in data storage in recent years. You can enjoy the advantages of SSDs by upgrading your Mac with one today.

They’re faster

SSDs have the clear advantage over HDDs in terms of data access speed. To access data, a typical SSD takes about 35 to 100 microseconds, which is about 100 times faster than an HDD. This means your Mac boots up in less than a minute, programs launch and run more quickly, files are transferred faster, and you can do data-intensive work without worrying that your computer will stall or freeze.

They’re more reliable

Most consumer SSDs use NAND flash memory, a type of nonvolatile storage technology that doesn’t require power to retain data. As such, you don’t risk losing or corrupting data in case your SSD is left unplugged. And if SSDs fail, your computer would still be able to read data, unless the actual memory chips are damaged.

What’s more, HDDs rely on magnetism to write data, so exposing your computer to a strong magnet could erase all information on your drive. This is not a problem with SSDs, which do not contain parts with magnetic coatings that can be easily damaged by being exposed to a magnetic field.

They’re more durable and long-lasting

Unlike HDDs, SSDs are less prone to damage due to shock and vibration. This is because SSDs do not have any of the moving parts, like drive platters and read arms, that HDDs do, so they won’t break if you drop, bump, or jostle your Mac.

They will fail over time, however, but it’s likely that your SSD will outlast your computer for many years. While consumer SSDs do have a limited number of reads and writes, under normal use, they can make it to at least 700TB of writes before failing. To put this in perspective, you would have to write 40GB of data every day for 50 years to get to 700TB, which means you don’t have to worry that you’ll wear out your SSD from overuse anytime soon.

They’re quieter

In fact, SSDs don’t make any noise at all. Again, this has something to do with their non-mechanical nature. SSDs don’t have any of the moving parts that make mechanical HDDs, especially the faster ones, noisy. A Mac with an SSD is generally quieter even when it’s performing intensive tasks.

They’re more energy-efficient

Compared to HDDs, SSDs don’t need as much power to run. Even at full sprint, they use up at least 50 percent less power than HDDs. This also has to do with SSDs’ lack of moving parts that consume electricity to read, write, and access information. And because SSDs don’t have these parts, they produce less heat, which also contributes to a reduction in power consumption. Less power consumed also helps improve your Mac’s performance and extend its service life.

An SSD will definitely improve your Mac’s overall performance, which translates to a boost in your productivity and efficiency. If you’re ready to upgrade your Mac with an SSD or have any questions about storage drives, call us today.

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Virtualization and cloud computing are sometimes mistaken as one and the same, causing much confusion. For the record, virtualization is different from cloud computing, but these two technologies usually overlap.

Virtualization
Imagine a company with five servers, each assigned a single task such as storage, email, etc. If there were a spike in email traffic, it would overwhelm the email server, causing it to slow down. Adding another server would solve this problem, but it would be expensive and inefficient on days with less traffic.

With virtualization software, you can combine the resources of all five servers in our example. So if the email server gets bogged down, it can borrow resources from any of the other servers with extra capacity. The process is not as simple as it sounds, and businesses often turn to an experienced IT service provider to set up a virtualized environment.

Because virtualization software can be installed on a server in your office, it is totally independent of cloud technology. Sometimes, people misunderstand the difference because the vast majority of cloud solutions use virtualization to improve their services.

Cloud computing
With cloud computing, users can edit documents, save files, and interact with apps that aren’t actually on their computer. Instead, they access these items by connecting to a server via a network or internet connection.

To carry out its purpose, a cloud platform sometimes uses several virtualized servers to provide users with a simple system that appears to be on its own, even though it’s actually shared with several other users and servers. There’s no need to purchase additional servers, and you can also save valuable office space by not having to deploy bulky equipment.

Obviously, scalability is critical in today’s ever-changing business conditions. Cloud computing makes it easier to manage business tasks to maximize productivity. And it helps streamline operations, as more cloud services are integrated. Businesses don’t have to worry about infrastructure maintenance because it is covered by the cloud service provider.

Virtualization and cloud computing are both economical technologies that small businesses should take advantage of. If you want to see what they can do for you, call our experts today!

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Android users will have their hands full when they learn about the new features of the latest Android OS. Named Android 9 Pie, it offers a truly remarkable experience, what with innovations that will change the way you use Android. Here are some of them.

Enhanced security features

In Android 9 Pie, apps won't be able to access your microphone, camera, and SensorManager sensors while running in the background. This prevents apps from abusing legitimate permissions they have been granted.

Another security enhancement is the lockdown mode. In case of an emergency, it lets you disable face- and fingerprint-based unlock, or any smart unlock options you have set up. You can enable this through Settings > Security & location > Lock screen preferences > Show lockdown option. To activate it, you just need to hold down the power button whereupon a new option will appear above the screenshot icon.

When you tap the lockdown icon, your phone will immediately lock and hide all lock screen notifications. To unlock it, you’ll need to enter your PIN, pattern, or password.

New accessibility menu

Android Pie 9 offers a new menu with easier-to-reach shortcuts for common functions, which are especially helpful for users who need assistance and those having difficulty using Android’s gestures.

To enable this menu, go to Settings > Accessibility > Accessibility Menu and turn on the Use service slider. Confirm the prompt, and a new icon to the right of the navigation bar will appear. Tapping it will bring up a large menu with shortcuts to your most commonly used functions such as volume, recent apps, and quick settings.

New gesture navigation

If you want a break from the usual Back, Home, and Recent buttons, you may want to try the new gesture-based system. It lets you navigate through the interface more fluidly and intuitively. To enable this, go to Settings > System > Gestures > Swipe up on Home.

Here's how the gesture system works:

1. Tap the new elongated Home button to go home.
2. The Back button will appear in its usual position.
3. Open the Recents view by swiping up on the Home button. Move left and right to view the list. Swiping up will clear a recent app, while pressing and holding an app’s icon will let you see the Split screen option. In this view, you can interact with apps to select and copy text.
4. Swipe up on the Home button twice to open your app drawer.
5. Swipe right and then hold down Home to slowly scroll between apps. Release to open the center app.
6. To switch to the previous app, swipe right quickly and release.
7. Pressing and holding the Home button will open Google Assistant as usual.

Adaptive battery and brightness

Adaptive Battery improved upon the Doze feature, which was introduced in Android 6 Marshmallow. Doze puts idle apps into a “deep sleep,” preventing them from draining the battery. Android 9 Pie goes a step further by learning about the user’s most utilized apps and services and adjusting rarely used apps to consume less battery.

App actions

App Actions predict what you want to do so you can quickly start tasks the next time you use your phone. So if you chat with coworkers on Hangouts regularly, you might see an App Action that will direct you to Hangouts.

These are just five of the many new features of the Android 9 Pie. Talk to us and learn why this OS is right for you.

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