The hospital network is the circulatory system of your hospital. Without blood your brain dies. If your blood cannot transport oxygen from your lungs, you die. Without a functional network, the hospital dies.  Neglect your hospital network and there will be blood.

Unfortunately, many practices are setting themselves up for disaster by neglecting their hospital network. Like a house of cards waiting to crumble, practices are placing expensive digital radiography systems and integrated practice management systems on top of hospital networks that were never designed to handle the load or designed to serve a mission critical role. 

Your hospital network is more than a wire connecting two computers; your network allows you to function in a modern, integrated practice. In the past, if the network or any computer went down, it was no more than a temporary nuisance until someone could come in to trouble shoot. You would simply continue with business as usual and maybe have to send your client a bill later. With the modern, integrated practice, business continuity is contingent upon a functional network.  Think about it:

• If you cannot access the Internet, you cannot receive or order lab services
• If you cannot access your computer database, you cannot access your paperless records or simply invoice
• If you cannot access your network, with some digital radiography systems, you might not even be able to make your digital machine work or bill for radiographs.
• If you cannot access your network, you cannot access your clients’ information to even call them about an animal in the hospital.
• If a server crashes, who is going to be in charge of rebuilding your database from your backups? Is your backup system reliable enough to restore your database in case of a crash? Do you even have a backup? The whole process could take days if not handled by the right IT people.
  
  A network is composed of wires, routers, switches, computers, monitors, printers, firewalls, and the software needed to operate them.  Your network is only as strong as the weakest link. If any component  breaks, the entire network is effectively broken.  Are you ready for even a minor disaster?

Don’t fear the internet: The understanding that the hospital network is mission critical causes some vets to recoil in horror and consider retreating back to the good old 1970’s where paper and film were king.  The answer is NOT to cut off Internet to your practice or put your hospital on LOCK DOWN by instituting draconian computer usage policies.  The answer is not to keep doing what you are doing by using inefficient methods of record keeping and maintaining your state of inefficiency just because you are afraid of computers or are (gasp) too cheap to ask for help.

We are becoming more and more reliant on these integrated systems, and for good reason. They improve our practices, make us more efficient, and improve the medicine we practice.  Your staff needs the Internet and a functional network to perform their job.  The network must be fast, reliable, and efficient.

With time, you will learn to love your network. At least until something goes wrong.  The key is to prevent something from going wrong and have a plan if it does (er..when it goes – it will. Trust me.)

Your IT person is more than a nerd who installs your computers:  The bedrock of your network contingency plan lies with your IT staff.  If anything breaks your first call should be to your IT person.

Your practice management vendor is not your IT person. Your practice management vendor is not equipped to troubleshoot your network issues.

Your IT person has to be well acquainted with your practice and troubleshooting a veterinary practice network.  Your IT person will even be your advocate with any issues related to PACS or practice management. Here are some rules to follow when hiring an IT person:

• Your Practice management vendor is not your IT staff.   I know, this was said two paragraphs ago. I don’t get paid by the word so you know it is important.  If you still use paper but have a digital radiography system – your PACS vendor is not your IT person either.
• Your IT person must be there for you 24-7 even if they are not a full time employee: remember, your hospital network is mission critical. If your network is down, you might as well take the day off because you are closed for business. Your IT person must understand this and be there for you in case of an emergency. Some services provide constant monitoring to your hospital network.  They will also help you implement preventative measures to limit the business disruption. 
• Veterinary practice management and PACS is a subspecialty: Knowing “about computers” is not enough. Your IT person must understand the workflow in your practice and be able to sort out communication issues between PACS and practice management. They are your advocates if you have multiple vendors pointing fingers at one another. Just like you send your smelly derm cases to the dermatologist, you should send your veterinary network to a veterinary network specialist.

You get what you pay for: Good practice management software and PACS software will cost a bit more. The reliability you get with these systems is worth the money. Similarly, experienced veterinary IT personnel are hard to come by. They will be a little more expensive than the computer guy down the street.

Some veterinary IT personnel are familiar with PACS, DICOM, HL7, and the different practice management software programs. In many cases, they can get you up and running without involving your PACS or PM vendor. Whatever it costs to get this type of veterinary specific IT support, it is worth it.

Remember, if your network goes down for 2 days or your server crashes and it takes you 2 days to get back up and running, you are effectively out of business for two days. What is that going to cost you? It is the disruptions that your practice needs to avoid and unfortunately is part of the cost of “bad” IT support.

In conclusion: Your computer network will crash and burn at some point. Your practice relies on your computer network as much as your practice management software and PACS. Be sure that you have an IT staff that is familiar with your practice and veterinary/PACS experience.

The following are two services that I am familiar with that offer remote IT support^1,2

1. Third Wave Partnership
2. DVMconnexx
   
   

1. These are vendors that we are familiar with and trust as some of our teleradiology clients use them. If you are a veterinary IT provider, I would be happy to include you in this list.  Simply provide us with a list of references and a request to be included.

2. Full disclosure: Readers are encouraged so support Animal Insides advertisers but we do not take kickbacks from any vendor mentioned in this article or any advertiser.  Ever! Ever! Ever!