Patient Privacy and Health Informatics
July 12, 2008 at 10:56 pm | Posted in Informatics, Privacy | Leave a CommentIn today’s world, consumers use secure internet software to manage their finances, make purchase transactions, register to personalized sites, and apply for online applications that contain personal data. As information technology has invaded the healthcare sector, similar issues are now present in regards to protection of privacy information. Overall, patient information has both positive and negative benefits when being shared over large networks. For medical research perspectives and evidence-based care paradigms, anonymous patient data can direct better quality care. However keeping data anonymous is the challenge. From a negative perspective, access of this information by employers or insurance agencies could cause significant personal and public problems potentially. The ability to protect this information is important. By eliminating the risks, health informatics provides another tool for enhancing medical quality.
The challenge for some health information technology systems has been converting patient database collections into an anonymous format to allow medical research to study epidemiological trends and treatment assessments. To what extent does data have to be made anonymous in order to ensure patient privacy? To an extreme this could render the data useless, but rarely is this necessary. In a poll of patients, 81 percent felt the use of their health information in medical research if kept anonymous would help their physicians render better care. With this level of support, anonymity is the focus.
The same challenge now exists for healthcare systems utilizing evidenced-based care. In order to make proper assessments of patient outcomes with specific treatments, some factors are required to define the optimal patterns of care. For example, identifying age and gender may be crucial to whether a treatment is effective for a sub-population. However, if the data group is small, this information could reveal identifying characteristics eliminating anonymity. In using health informatics to achieve this goal of improved patient care measures, safeguards must be followed to avoid pitfalls of accidentally identifying patients.
In another poll question, 68 percent of patients felt it was top priority not to have employers have access to their health information. It is surprising the figure is not higher, but regardless, the majority sees this as a significant threat. This becomes even more important for health and life insurance companies that regulate insurance premiums and allowables. While it may not be an accepted practice to alter these variables according to disease specifics in individual patients, patients see this as a tremendous risk. This is similar to protecting key financial information for consumers as both loss of finances and insurance protection affect deep feelings of security overall.
Compared to prior systems that were manually operated, information technology enhances the ability to look at large sets of healthcare data. Without this ability to effectively organize and store information and disseminate it to areas of research and care decisions, manual abilities would be tremendously handicapped in making the same strides in patient care. But with these benefits comes precautions to first do no harm to the patient. What is advantageous for informatics is the ability to apply safeguards in a uniform manner to allow protection of patient privacy. Solutions to provide data security are much simpler than in manual systems in general.
While risks if information dissemination exists with electronic health information systems, solutions to control anonymity and maintain information security are readily available. Patient populations support these are important areas, and informatics experts have listened to these needs. By providing necessary privacy protection, significant improvements in healthcare quality can evolve more rapidly. By proceeding with appropriate concern, these benefits will be realized for everyone.
References:
The Markle Foundation. Oct 11, 2005. Retrieved from
http://www.markle.org/resources/press_center/press_releases/2005/press_release_10112005.php on June 18th, 2008.
| This article © Anton Pearce 2008. Brought to you by The IT Hive.
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IT Solutions for Medication Incidents
July 8, 2008 at 2:23 am | Posted in Incident Management, Informatics, SaaS | Leave a CommentOver the last three decades there has been a dramatic increase in the number of medications and generic versions of medications release by pharmaceutical companies. Add to that the greater volume of patients evaluated and treated over time and the result has been an increasing number of medication errors, along with bad outcomes in patient care.
With the use of health informatics, IT solutions have been able to dramatically reduce the number of errors through many different methods. These include better methods of reporting medication incidents, better safeguards through monitoring interactions and allergies, better communication among healthcare staff, and better tracking abilities which offer better chances for effective policy changes. As a result of these benefits, informatics has resulted in better medication care for many people.
In years past, medication incidents may only be reported if significant side effects or bad outcomes were evident. Often, however, no reporting was made if ill effects were absent because errors may have never been identified especially if medication treatments were limited or short term. While this “no harm, no foul” methodology was acceptable for a time, these seemingly harmless mistakes offered great potential in warding off bigger problems later. IT solutions allows these incidents to be captured and reported more comprehensively as medication ordering, prescription filling, and medication administration are tracked and compared to safety information. If errors exist along the way, incident reporting is automatic.
As part of these monitoring systems in place, other safeguards are possible as well. With the number of medications on the market and the list of drugs some patients take, keeping up with drug interactions is incredibly difficult. Likewise, monitoring patients’ allergies can be time consuming as well if a long list exists or if their allergies are not well consolidated. IT solutions easily allow these medication problems to be prevented through comparing medications to databases of information that details drug interactions and patients’ allergies. This alone has made huge impacts in reducing medication incidents.
Another difficulty in medication incident reporting previously has been the lack of direct communication among physicians, nurses, and pharmacists. Connecting these professionals in an efficient manner when medication questions arose or when reporting medication incidents was problematic. Health informatics provides rapid communication among these individuals by conveying messages and alerts electronically by internet or intranet email messaging systems. As a whole, the enhanced communication allows almost immediate notification when medication incidents arise. This may even prevent the problem or incident before it occurs.
Lastly, IT solutions have allowed a much better ability to track patterns of medication errors and incidents within a healthcare system. If a few physicians were responsible for the majority of medication errors, it was more difficult to distinguish this pattern without system wide electronic data processing. Likewise, if a few medications were consistently the problematic issues at hand, the same problem of identifying this trend was evident. Instead, medical informatics allows this data to be collected and analyzed yielding clear patterns of behavior or groups of medication that influence incident occurrence. This in turn allows policies and procedures to be changed that correct their occurrence. This has much greater benefits for all of patient care as a result.
While medication incident reporting will always be necessary, health informatics allows a healthcare system to be thorough and efficient in its ability to identify, track and report medication incidents as they occur. The “speed” of healthcare dictates this ability so that patient care can be improved and so that safeguards can be put into place. The end result is that quality of care uniformly improves as medications are prescribed safely and effectively for the benefit of the patient.
This article © Anton Pearce 2008. Brought to you by The IT Hive.
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All about HL7 Messaging
July 8, 2008 at 2:21 am | Posted in Healthcare software, Informatics, Terminology | Leave a CommentHealth Level 7 (or HL7) messaging is a means by which the vast array of medical health databases can “speak” to each other in a common language. Since the late 1980′s, there has been an explosion of various vendors offering health information technology systems all designed around unique aspects that each vendor felt was important. While the individuality made it appealing to different segments of the medical community, problems with integration and communications among various IT systems became evident. In other words, a patient’s information in a hospital could not be conveyed to a radiology center or pharmacy because each had different operating systems. This problem has continued even today and presents a challenge to developing integration of healthcare systems nationally and internationally.
In this regard, informatics specialists began to designate a “code” or language that could be used in designing different health information technology systems. From this came HL7 messaging, which allows interfaces between different electronic systems to communicate. Prior to this, customized programs had to be written to accommodate two systems allowing conversion of informational traffic both ways so successful integration could occur. This was very time-consuming and cumbersome, not to mention costly. Now approximately 80 percent of health IT systems contain a core of HL7 messaging so the ability to design HL7 interfaces is much easier than before.
Why is this important? For a start, the ability to enhance communication between two different IT systems allows patient data to be transferred along a continuum of their care. This creates better knowledge of a patient’s condition across the board and prevents duplication of expensive diagnostics due to the lack of prior health information. In addition, larger data pools across large networks connected through HL7 messaging interfaces enhance evidence based outcomes data and clinical research data. This has the potential to dramatically improve healthcare quality.
HL7 messaging interfaces provide a solution for the need to share medical and clinical information among systems without the extensive work of customized programs, and they also continue to allow some individuality among different IT solutions software which is important for the different style of clinical practice. By having a language framework of HL7 messaging “code” at their core, various IT systems can transfer key information that can then be formatted into an end product consistent with their unique product. On the user’s end, they still enjoy a tailored product that they desire, but at the same time can have access from many other systems which contain a patient’s information.
As a need to contain healthcare costs become an increased burden due to greater longevity of life and increasing costs of technological medical advances, the need to have various health informatics systems communicate well is going to be crucial. Having HL7 as the core language allows interfaces to relay information between systems that will help contain these expenses. Soon, all IT systems in healthcare will carry this basic framework. That means instead of a healthcare system having to spend enormous amounts of time and money in joining a new universal system, they can simply create a HL7 interface that allows communication to other systems. This will be the easy solution moving into the future.
If you are unaware of HL7 messaging interfaces, this is an area you may need to become familiar with as time moves forward. Ultimately, all healthcare systems will require this in order to provide the best quality care at a reasonable expense. Resources are limited and wasting this valuable healthcare information due to a lack of integration will eventually be intolerable in comparison to the need for improving healthcare. These solutions even now are very feasible options to meet the immediate need for IT integration.
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Benefits of SaaS for Health Care providers
June 18, 2008 at 2:41 am | Posted in Healthcare software, Informatics, SaaS, Web Applications | 2 CommentsDespite some early disadvantages to web-based software venders, there has been a resurgence of “software as a service” (or SaaS) providers. In essence, these providers host software on their site for users to rent and download for use. All data and information is stored at the vendor’s site. While many poorly operating companies failed at this endeavor in the healthcare industry, the ones that have now emerged offer significant benefits to healthcare facilities and hospitals. Advantages include low entry fees, low risk investments, responsibility shifted to the vendor and away from the user, and a long term working relationship between vendor and user. Each of these benefits may result in SaaS as being the best option for many health systems.
Because the software exists on a vendor’s site, the costs of purchasing the software outright along with any additional hardware needs are non-existent. User costs for downloaded and operating the software are the only requirements, therefore the entry costs into an information technology solution is quite inexpensive. Particularly for smaller companies, this may be the only means by which they can convert over to electronic operations. Also, this can allow a partial roll-out of software use to a segment of the facility as a trial run before considering full implementation.
Considering other cost savings, SaaS also results in a lower risk investment long term. The hazards of purchasing information technology software or entering long term lease agreements causes a facility to be tied to a vendor or a bank for a period that may be much longer than the effectiveness of a system. In this situation, the facility must simply wait for the term to expire. In SaaS situations, vendor agreements have a much shorter term and require less financial investments. Both of these make the investment less risky. If things go awry, then a facility can simply end the agreement.
One of the most significant benefits for Software as a Service is the fact that the vendor remains responsible for the maintenance and functionality of the software. IT departments or consultants do not have to be bothered with software malfunctions since it rests on the vendor’s server. Likewise, this is the vendor’s primary business and means to success, so there is a greater interest in making sure everything is working perfectly. This may not always be the case with an IT department or a third party IT consultant. The same issues can be said for backups and security solutions. Vendors realize these are crucial services for their business to succeed. In many cases, SaaS vendors likely provide better security and backup services that staff on site.
Lastly, the relationship between the vendor and the user is inherently maintained over the long haul is SaaS situations. The vendors own the software, maintain its function, and continue to address questions as they arise. In other IT situations, vendors may charge for support services, be difficult to locate, and may not provide emergency services when IT systems suddenly fail. This is unlikely to be the case with SaaS vendors. Since the software on their site serves many clients, down time is emergently attended to as is support and functionality issues. In other words, SaaS vendors “own” the problem and are more likely to be attentive faster.
All in all, web-based SaaS solutions offer great advantages for some healthcare operations. If cost considerations, gradated implementation, and limited in-house IT services are present, Software as a Service options may be ideal for your facility. In making this decision, assess your needs and identify what may work best for you. If these are important factors then SaaS may be a great solution to allow you to have informatics work for you.
References:
Finch, Curt. (January 2, 2006). The Benefits of the Software-as-a-Service Model.
Computerworld. Retrieved from http://computerworld.com/managementtopics/ on June 17th, 2008.
This article © Anton Pearce 2008. Brought to you by The IT Hive.
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Choosing health care software
June 18, 2008 at 1:09 am | Posted in Healthcare software, SaaS | Leave a CommentMany software information technology systems exist today and offer healthcare facilities or systems great variety from which to choose. These systems can tackle areas such as administrative decision making, financial management, clinical patient applications, and regulatory compliance monitoring. However, despite these areas of functionality, your individual facility may not require all the bells and whistles available on each system you evaluated. Major issues that should be investigated include the integration of the system with one’s current practices, the stability of the vendor, the plan of implementation, and the financial considerations in the costs of the IT system. In assessing each of these aspects, you can make a decision that tailors to the specific needs of the facility.
Like many health facilities, there are varying degrees of electronic practices within many businesses today. For example, an electronic billing system may be in place, but patient data and charting operates on paper file systems. Possibly, the current facility links to other healthcare organizations that operate on a different IT system. In these situations, it is important identify how a new informatics system will integrate into the current operations. Even if integration is possible, the cost of the integration may be a deterrent. In some situations, the best solution may be to revamp all areas of IT services, but all options should be investigated to achieve the best affordable and quality solution.
In the last two decades, a slew of vendors have flooded the healthcare market with electronic systems that provide healthcare solutions. Likewise, many have come and gone. In these situations, purchasers of these systems have purchased software and possibly hardware, but they no longer have support or service contract abilities. If their system should “crash”, options at repair and data salvage may be limited or very expensive. Determining the quality, longevity and reputation of a healthcare system vendor is therefore very important. Not only can you make a choice for a quality product, but also choose a company that will be there later if you need them.
So you have chosen a stable vendor and a product that integrates into your current operations. How will you implement the system? This is one of the biggest challenges for many hospitals and healthcare facilities. If a plan of implementation is not considered, frustrations are almost guaranteed to occur among users as the transition process occurs. The more frustrations, the less likely the new system will allow normal operations to smoothly occur. Good vendors will tailor a plan of implementation with a business to be sure smooth transitions occur. Often this requires on-site assistance during the transition period and several sessions of training beforehand. This is an important aspect not to neglect.
Lastly, how will the IT system be financed? Options now exist for some products (depending on storage size) to have web based storage and operate solely through internet based connections. This lowers the cost as does leasing a server based system. Challenges can exist regarding legally defined needs for healthcare privacy, so be sure to investigate this ability if a web-based solution is considered. On occasion, purchasing a system makes more sense based on depreciation factors and information speeds. Again, these issues require individualized solutions in choosing the best product for your situation.
Choosing the right healthcare system to handle your information technology needs is important. While packages exist that are fairly generalized, nothing can replace the ability to individualize a facility’s needs to the exact system in question. This can save time and money in many areas. In making the decision, invest the time and energy to make a good decision since these solutions will be in place for a long time to come. Shortcuts in cost savings may not be worth it if it sacrifices quality and the unique features that your facility demands.
References:
Yourwriters. (June 7, 2006) Choosing the Right Heath Care Software. Retrieved from http://www.availability.com/topics/index.cfm?fuseaction=article&id=AF0B9642-9E3C-9E4E-C279D7B35C21DA0B&topic=Healthcare%20IT on June 17th, 2008.
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Patient Administration Systems
June 17, 2008 at 12:56 am | Posted in Healthcare software, Informatics, Patient Administration | Leave a CommentThrough the past several decades, collection of hospital and outpatient facility patient data has not only increased also has expanded among areas within these networks. What used to be contained in a single section of a healthcare facility is now distributed to many sections within the facility, to sister facilities, and even to remote sections of participating partners and affiliates.
Without information technology, this expansion of intranets would not have been possible without an incredible amount of reduplication of materials and information. Complete sets of patient information, records of inpatient and outpatient encounters, monitoring of bed availability, and patient case mix would have remained significantly restrained without informatics. In order to compete and provide high quality care, information technology is a must for today’s healthcare environments.
Patient administration systems contain master files of data of all patient information. This includes demographics, insurance data, medical records, and diagnostic information. Previously this information would be scattered throughout many different areas of a hospital, or in many cases when patients were seen at multiple centers, throughout many different hospitals themselves.
By providing electronic data collection and storage, this information can be organized into on database and accessed by many at the same time. This has even allowed radiographic images to be stored and organized along with patient information which would otherwise be incredibly difficult.
Volume tracking of patients is another key area of patient administration systems that needs to be accurately monitored. This allows predictions on staffing, supplies, ancillary service needs, etc. Admissions and discharges as well as outpatient encounters are crucial to efficiently operate a facility.
As resources to provide effective healthcare has declined, efficiency has been the best answer. Informatics by tracking these volume measures allows a facility to meet these efficiency goals better as exact figures can be assessed over time. Even outpatient appointment schedules can be organized and improved as informatics allows easy ability to post schedule reminders and cancellations.
Since many states allocate hospital beds among facilities, tracking bed availability as part of patient administration systems has become increasingly important. On one hand, when many hospitals within a state are operating at near-full capacity, being able to easily monitor bed availability enables patients to be relocated to areas where they will receive the best care.
On the other hand, some facilities close certain bed areas when volumes are reduced. Tracking bed availability during these times lets hospitals or units know when to open or close areas to maximize profits. In both instances, information technology makes this data readily available. As a patient is admitted or discharged, information systems are updated providing almost a real-time knowledge of bed status.
Lastly as a means to provide better quality care to patients, patient administration systems record patient case mix among populations of centers, units, hospitals and even networks. This can guide many services by identifying disease occurrence, epidemiology, length of stays, etc.
These resources can help alert medical professionals when certain health conditions are rising or declining. In addition, certain diseases carry higher costs. Case mix information lets hospitals and outpatient centers predict where financial resources need to be allocated. With the electronic ability to record, store and transfer this information, case mix data holds tremendous potential for patient care.
From many perspectives patient administration systems provide widespread information that enables effective operation of a healthcare facility. As facilities have developed into their own networks consisting of several entities, and as databases are being shared for the purpose of medical research, information technology has made these endeavors a possibility. Without informatics, such ability to collect and distribute such a large amount of data would require an enormous amount of resources. And this is one luxury that current healthcare cannot afford.
Reference
Muscat, Hugo. (2005). Health Information and Medical Informatics. Retrieved from http://home.um.edu.mt/publichealth/ on 6/14/08.
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Maintaining a Staff Training Register
June 17, 2008 at 12:55 am | Posted in Human Resources, Staff Development | Leave a CommentInformation technologies have created efficiencies and flexibilities in many areas of health care. By providing better means for data entry, data storage and information retrieval, informatics can facilitate health care information easily. One of the ongoing requirements for hospitals and healthcare facilities is that staff receives adequate training and sometimes certifications in areas of care policy and practice. Manual logs are time-consuming, cumbersome and prone to inaccuracies. By employing information technology to these areas, staff training registers can be completed more efficiently for everyone while providing better use of resources and better documentation. In addition, better organization leads to avoidance of certification expirations. Informatics can help streamline this segment of healthcare allowing greater focus on direct patient care instead.
For the staff member involved in maintaining a staff register, it is not only time consuming but also a challenge. Different staff members need training at different times due to variations in work shifts. This must be matched with training resources as well. With informatics, this data can be loaded into a program that can facilitate this organization and dramatically reduce the amount of time it takes to structure and input information. By balancing everyone’s schedule better, this promotes staff satisfaction.
For some areas of staff training, certifications are required and must be periodically updated to be current. For example, CPR certification for many nurses in areas of the hospital is required. By applying informatics, this data can be continually updated monthly or quarterly to maintain a regular log of who is certified, who is not, and when certifications are scheduled to expire. Alert notifications can be programmed in advance of the expiration date to avoid lapses in skills or qualifications. In this way information technology can prevent staff shortages and better plan training needs.
Training staff can also be cumbersome if not costly. Most commonly, resources to train staff are limited or have to be hired from outside sources. In this way, financial as well as skill limitations exist in providing training needs. Electronic schedules and databases of staff to be trained can best allow a means to effectively organize training sessions. By arranging sessions in accordance of maximum attendance, informatics provides an efficiency that saves time and money. This is particularly helpful when training must be accomplished in a short time. Data analysis and storage make this possible given the staff information inherently in the electronic system.
With constant requirements for credentialing certifications of various healthcare facilities, documentation is a tremendous need for many areas. Training is no exception. Files or folders of staff training records and/or certifications are a challenge in terms of storage ability as well as centralized locations for storage. Information technologies avoid this problem by allowing electronic data storage that can be accessed from many user points. This documentation is likewise easy to retrieve and organize for credentialing needs as they arise. The amount of time this saves is significant when compared to manual efforts of documentation, not to mention the potential for credentialing failure due to lost training logs.
In summary, informatics enables smoother operations in just about all aspects of staff training. Clearly the ability to maintain a staff training register is enhanced by electronic databases and storage, but many other benefits are evident. These include better time allocation for resources and staff in scheduling training sessions and cost savings due to the elimination of inefficiencies. Only necessary resources are then used, and staff time that had been spent on administrative aspects of logging training registers can be spent on other areas of quality care. Information technology provides a better means to scheduling, monitoring and documenting staff training exercises.
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Patient Risk Assessment
June 17, 2008 at 12:53 am | Posted in Healthcare software, Incident Management, Risk Management | Leave a CommentRisk management practices are important for any organization, but in particular, health organizations because of patient care carry a more significant burden than other types of businesses. Patient risk assessment is therefore important in identifying, assessing, analyzing and managing patient’s risk while going through the healthcare process. The use of informatics to assist with this area of management has been extremely helpful. Specifically, electronic patient risk assessments help healthcare facilities communicate, integrate, educate and implement key concepts involved in promoting good quality patient care. Without information technology to assist with these areas, the challenges become time consuming and limited in scope. However, having informatics help organize and distribute this process greatly enhances its effectiveness.
Communication is a large part of patient risk assessments in healthcare. The goal of communication is to create a culture that is transparent, open and fair. It is also important to communicate a sense of leadership and support to the staff within this open environment. By having information technology provide a means of communication between management, staff and the public, this open forum of transparency is created. This is an effective tool in reducing patient risk as both problems and solutions are more likely to come forth. Without informatics, this degree of communication would take much longer to accomplish in the forms of meetings, mailings, and announcements. Electronic forums on the other hand distribute policies easily and provide a channel for anyone at anytime to strengthen the patient risk assessment program.
Information technology also helps integrate patient risk assessment plans. Once policies are defined, these can be integrating into each department area to create uniformity. Communicating policy and procedure is fine, but without integration into day to day operations, theory becomes wasted. Informatics can easily transfer protocol data from a general policy into a specific policy to make integration simple. For example, a hospital may decide on a new patient quality of care questionnaire as part of its risk management process on patient exit. But because different areas have different quality indicators, this questionnaire changes per department. To manually accomplish this would be difficult, but electronically quality indicators can be substituted for key phrases within the questionnaire thus tailoring it according to needs. Instead of tremendous hours of integration, informatics allows this within minutes.
Other tools of an effective patient risk assessment also include education and implementation. Education refers to both staff and public education to improve safety and quality of care. Information technology allows this as it does in other areas of healthcare education by facilitating online learning. Didactic sessions can be available for anyone to view, and staff that is required to participate in these sessions can be tracked to ensure compliance. This leads into implementation as problem areas defined within a healthcare system need an easy means by which to implement better solutions as they appear. The ability to change policy and procedure of patient risk assessment, and to distribute this to widespread public and private areas, is a clear advantage of electronic information technologies.
Overall, patient risk assessment is an integral part to quality patient care. Manual efforts to invoke these tools have been helpful but are limited in scope. This in turns limits the effectiveness because of delays in changing policy and procedure and in communicating information to staff and public areas. By utilizing the abilities of informatics to rapidly communicate, integrate, educate and implement new patient risk assessment strategies, patient outcomes benefit more quickly. Risk is therefore more efficiently reduced and patient’s quality of care is elevated. Information technology provides the best means to utilize patient risk assessments within healthcare to realize the goal of better patient health.
References:
Seven Steps to Patient Safety – your guide to safer patient care. (2007). Retrieved from
http://www.npsa.nhs.uk/patientsafety/improvingpatientsafety/patient-safety-tools-and-guidance/7steps/ on June 17, 2008.
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10 Web Apps for Your Health Service
June 17, 2008 at 12:40 am | Posted in Healthcare software, Incident Management, OSH, SaaS, Web Applications | Leave a CommentThe 10 web apps you need for your Health Service
The way we do business has changed a lot in the last decade and the catalyst for this change has been the Internet, or more specifically the web. These days, instead of spending big bucks on software, business owners are looking for cheaper, less traditional options. Needless to say the web is bursting with applications that will help your business run smoothly. Here are ten to get you started.
1. Big Contacts
http://www.bigcontacts.com
Big Contacts has been getting rave reviews from users since its launch in January 2007 and it’s not hard to see why. This web-based contact manager is robust enough to compete with industry favourites like ACT! and GoldMine but is not excessively bulky so its performance lags.
Big Contacts handles all the usual customer management tasks well. Adding and importing contacts is a breeze with the intuitive interface. Users are able to schedule appointments, add notes, create and assign tasks and attach files and photos. Being web-based, the system is available everywhere which is handy for businesses that take advantage of remote staff or for people who want to log-in from home.
GMail
http://mail.google.com
Webmail isn’t a new concept, but when GMail burst onto the scene in 2004 it changed a lot of perceptions about web-based email.
GMail, a Google App, is an efficient email tool that combines an award winning spam filter, accurate search technology and handy organisational tools. Creating an account is straightforward as is the actual use of the app. As a bonus, businesses can now use GMail as a primary business email on their own domain (i.e. john@yourcompany.com) with at least 6 GB of space allocated to each user. Integrated chat and calendar features provide GMail with extra functionality and the ability to use 3rd party email clients (like Outlook or Thunderbird) to check mail via POP3/IMAP is another big plus.
3. Google Calendar
http://www.google.com/calendar
Google Calendar, along with GMail, Google Docs, Google Talk and Google Sites is an important component of the Google Apps suite of products. Perfect for organisations of any size, it has some handy features to keep your schedule up-to-date.
As with all Google products, Google Calendar is easy to use and very intuitive. The interface works seamlessly across all browsers and mobile devices. Calendars can be shared with different users or exported to iCal and transferring information from other scheduling tools works well. Your Google contact list is always present on the screen making it easy to schedule meetings with contacts and the ability to drag and drop events makes the system feel more like a desktop app.
Zoho
http://zoho.com
Now and then, every business needs to do some word processing or spreadsheet work. In the past, office applications have been expensive to buy and correctly license, but Zoho has changed all that. Boasting 17+ web apps and utilities the system is fast, well designed and very impressive.
While all of Zoho’s apps are available as standalone products they do have a packaged suite called Zoho Business where everything is controlled by a single dashboard for easier management. Zoho Business includes Writer, Sheets, Show, Wiki, Notebook, Email, Cal, Tasks, Planner, Viewer and Chat. With a yearly subscription costing about $40 per user, Zoho Business is definitely feature packed value for money.
5. Zone Alarm
http://www.zonealarm.com/
From one of the most popular and well-respected brands in Internet security, Zone Alarm protects 60 million computer systems from all types of internet threats. Used by personal users and businesses, Zone Alarm is a complete security package offering protection from viruses, hackers, spyware and spam.
These days you simply can’t do anything on the Internet without running a security program and Zone Alarm is a great choice. It is cost effective, easy to use and install. It learns which security alerts you want to see, auto updates protection and automatically secures wireless networks and delivers proactive firewall protection. Definitely a must for any business.
ZoneJudo
http://www.zonejudo.com
ZoneJudo is a suite of tools developed for small hospitals and medical practices. Developed by a group of Health IT professionals, it provides access to a core group of nine standard apps including a Patient Care Plan Creator, Staff Roster, User and Document Management and a choice of several targeted health service apps, like Incident & Hazard Reporting and a Discharge Planning System.
Users have the option to access the entire integrated suite or to mix and match modules that are most relevant to their practice. This particular feature makes ZoneJudo a very cost effective solution.
One of the most impressive features is the working demo which enables you to try the apps before you buy, something that is especially important when it comes to tools that promise to streamline your business.
FreshBooks
http://www.freshbooks.com/
Unfortunately for business owners “doing the books” is a part of life. Thankfully there are some great options for those not wanting to go the traditional, more expensive software route. One of the best is FreshBooks.
Accounts are easy to set up and the system is well designed and simple to use. Users can invoice, add payments, track expenses and track time spent on projects. The system sends automatic late payment reminders for delinquent accounts and most importantly all your data is safe and securely hosted on the FreshBooks servers.
8. Mozy
http://mozy.com
One thing that businesses often forget is backing up their data. Things do happen that are outside the normal scope of preparedness, so its worth investigating a safe, cost effective way to backup your information. Voted #1 in Time Magazines 50 Best Websites for 2007 and Editor’s Choice Award from PC Magazine (2006) Mozy provides this essential service to millions of users world wide.
Offering three product tiers for business and individuals and available for both Mac and PC systems, Mozy provides an automatic or scheduled backup of your business data. Everything that is transferred is 128-bit SSL encrypted and while it sites on the Mozy server it’s protected by 448-bit Blowfish encryption. If something does go wrong, the expert technicians at Mozy will be able to restore your system in no time.
9. Jott
http://jott.com/default.aspx
Ever been driving along and had a brilliant idea only to forget what it was before you had a chance to write it down? If you have – Jott is for you.
Jott is a voice-to-text system that helps you to stay organised. Just call the Jott number, speak your request and within minutes your phone call is transcribed and waiting in your inbox. Not only can you Jott errands, lists, emails and text messages, you can also update web services like Twitter, Remember the Milk, Blogger, Amazon and many more.
At the moment it’s a free service, so if you are lucky enough to be in the US or Canada make sure you try it out.
Qipit
http://www.qipit.com/
How many times have you been in a meeting and wished you could just take a photo of the scrawly notes on the whiteboard instead of having to copy them down? Now you can with this useful app that’s been dubbed the “poor man’s electronic whiteboard”.
It works by taking a digital photo of a whiteboard or a set of notes with your camera or camera phone and sending it to Qipit via email, MMS or fax. Your photo is then scanned, saved as a PDF and stored for later use. At the moment this is a free service so it’s well worth setting up an account and trying it out.
This article © Anton Pearce 2008. Brought to you by The IT Hive.
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