9 things to get your practice's IT ready for growth

As your medical practice grows, its IT needs to grow with it. Sort out your IT early and it supports every new patient, staff member and location. Leave it, and the same systems become the thing holding you back. 

Here are nine practical things you can do to get your practice’s IT ready to scale. 

Your practice management system sits underneath almost everything: your workflows, third-party apps, scalability, effort and cost. Choose it deliberately before you grow. 

If you suspect you're on the wrong platform, change now rather than after you've added more rooms, clinicians or sites, because the cost and disruption of switching increases over time. 

Signs your current system may not take you where you want to go: 

• It slows down or struggles as your users or patient database grows 
• It relies on a physical server kept at the practice, which makes adding locations difficult 
• Adding more computers or resources doesn't fix performance problems 
• It can't support the workflows you'll need as the practice gets bigger. 

Many practices still run on a server-based setup, where software and patient data sit on a physical computer, a server, kept on site at the practice. That server has a fixed capacity, so as you add users, data and locations, it eventually can't keep up.

A cloud-based setup removes that limit. The same software and data are hosted securely offsite by the cloud provider and reached over the internet, so instead of buying and running your own server, you simply connect to your systems from wherever you are.  

Moving to the cloud: 

• Lowers your costs, because you avoid buying and maintaining server hardware 
• Makes security and backups the provider's responsibility rather than yours 
• Removes the need for complicated connections between multiple sites 
• Lets you add staff or locations without buying new equipment each time. 

It's worth noting that cloud performance depends on your internet connection, the hosting environment and how your systems are configured. Before you move, check your practice's internet reliability, software requirements and network capacity. 

Before you can tell whether your IT is ready to grow, you need a clear picture of what you've actually got. Documenting your setup gives you that picture. It's also what lets someone pick up the pieces if a key staff member leaves, or lets your IT partner upgrade things without having to work everything out from scratch. 

Keep a current record of: 

• Your hardware and asset register, so you know exactly what equipment you have and where it is 
• Logins, credentials and software licences 
• Your software and third-party applications, and what each one is used for 
• How key tasks are actually done, step by step. 

Standardisation means doing the same task the same way every time, across every room, staff member and location. 

Printing is a good example. Say the printer in room A is set up to print to one tray with one set of defaults, and room B is set up differently again. Each of those setups has to be built, configured and supported on its own. So every time you add a room or a clinician, your IT partner can't simply copy an existing setup, they have to design a new one from scratch.  

Multiply that across printers, phones, logins and clinical software and you can see how a dozen small inconsistencies make the practice harder and more expensive to run. 

When you standardise and everything works the same way, adding capacity becomes a repeatable process rather than a new problem each time.

For most practices, email is now the single biggest cyber risk. If you're running your practice on a free consumer account, or even a standard Google setup, move to a business-grade platform such as Microsoft 365. 

It adds protection you don't get otherwise, including controls over where your data is stored and who can access it from where, and it noticeably reduces your exposure. 

Beyond email, a handful of basics make a real difference: 

• Turn on multi-factor authentication across your systems 
• Don't share passwords between staff, and make each password a long sentence you can remember rather than a jumble of characters 
• Put written cybersecurity policies in place so expectations are clear 
• Have an incident response plan ready, so staff know what to do if something goes wrong 
• Put a bring-your-own-device policy in place, covering staff who access practice systems from personal phones or laptops. Those devices should be used only by that staff member, kept secure and never used to open suspicious attachments while connected to your systems. 
• Confirm with your IT partner that your network, servers and data are encrypted.

For practices across more than one site, the internet is usually the single point of failure. If the connection drops, work can stop. The goal is to make sure a single outage never brings the practice to a halt. In practice that means: 

• Setting up backup internet, such as a mobile 4G or 5G connection, that takes over automatically or quickly if your main connection fails 
• Making sure your backups are actually running, and knowing exactly how quickly they can be restored 
• Writing simple downtime procedures your staff can follow, including how to switch to a mobile hotspot to keep working 
• Moving systems to the cloud where you can, which reduces how much any one site's internet connection matters. 

AI tools are becoming more common in healthcare, from scribing and transcription to patient communication. Before adopting them, check that your IT environment can support them securely.

That means looking at how a new tool connects to your existing systems, how patient information is protected, and whether you've got the right access controls and governance around who can use it and what it can see. 

Bring in an IT specialist to review your systems, assess your workflows and give you a clear picture of what to keep and what to change.

Then turn the findings into a simple roadmap: the risks, the opportunities, and what you'll tackle each year. That way you're making deliberate decisions about your IT rather than reacting to whatever breaks next.

Working through this list is far easier with a partner who understands healthcare. PracticeIT brings together Avant and healthcare IT specialists REND Tech to give your practice a one-stop shop for secure, compliant and reliable technology. 

• End-to-end support, from cybersecurity and cloud hosting to hardware setup and helpdesk support 
• Predictable costs through transparent monthly billing with no hidden fees 
• Expert guidance from specialists who understand clinical workflows. 

Book a meeting to discuss your practice’s IT needs or call us today on 1800 010 236.