Re: in house servers

[Guest guest]

,

I use e-mds and

have a server. Actually, this was a very expensive part of the system as it is

set up in a RAID 5 configuration with tape back-up and thus cost about $7500.

Networking (setting it all up so that it talked to my other two computers) cost

an additional $2000. I also have an IT guy on retainer so he can update all my

stuff monthly (or whenever a Microsoft patch comes out). Ultimately, I would

like to get an offsite server that serves as an immediate back-up if my current

one dies. So far, however, I have not had to do anything to the server except change

the tape every night before I leave.

I like the idea of having the information

on site, but if I had it to do over, I would find a cheaper way. My server is

scalable to 15 docs (yet I only have one). It seems to me that my server is

like a typical FP office with a burdensome amount of redundancy. In my

streamlined system, I figure there has to be a better way. I also know little

about the inner workings of “the box,” and so that is why I outsourced.

Yes, the system works well and I have had no real problems in 3.5 years. I just

still have some heartburn about the cost. Hope that’s helpful!

in

house servers

How many of you are using in House

servers and doing your own backing up of data? Being on Alteer, it is all

ASP so that your data is backed up offsite on their server. ECW gives

you the option of doing either.

With no experience of maintaining

the server and doing my own back ups.... I am nervous about this. Do you

have to hire a good IT person to help you maintain everything?( especially if

you are like me and know little about computer hardware). Does the server

ever crash and you can't get into your system?

Lee

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

Yes I have my own server. I use a tape backup system, and that is no problem.

I just rotate thru

5 tapes: each weekday I take one out and take it home and bring the oldest one

from home back.

Yes I have a great IT guy, and A4 also has good tech support. They set things

up and tell me what

I need to do and I do it...

Yes my server has died, twice. When I started with all these computers,

everyone said " It'll take

years for you to outgrow this " , but they failed to mention that a lot of

hardware bites the dust

after 3 years. My server is four years old and it started to have problems at 3

1/2 years. I have

a new one now, and am just waiting to get my data migrated over to the new one.

Other than the two big crashes (the first one took a whole week to fix;

fortunately it was the week

before Christmas, so it was really slow here anyway) I have had very few

problems with the whole

system. But just in case, I have a paper " Plan B " with paper superbills, paper

H & P templates and

regular old Rx pads....in a pinch I just revert to paper. I also am in the

regular habit of

printing a copy of tomorrow's schedule every day before I leave, so that if by

chance the system is

down I will know who is coming and when.

Annie

------- Original Message -------

From : Leeclan

Sent : 10/4/2006 3:34:19 PM

To :

Cc :

Subject : RE: in house servers

How many of you are using in House servers and doing your own backing up of

data? Being on

Alteer, it is all ASP so that your data is backed up offsite on their server.

ECW gives you the

option of doing either.

With no experience of maintaining the server and doing my own back ups.... I am

nervous about

this. Do you have to hire a good IT person to help you maintain everything?(

especially if you are

like me and know little about computer hardware). Does the server ever crash

and you can't get

into your system?

Lee

[Guest guest]

From Drain, Oregon, I am using an in House server with ethernet (a wired system). Can not use wireless because my office has cement block walls. The server has a tape backup system by a company called Certance. The tape is used because one way you can lose data is via a virus or trojan, and that would be on your disc if you just back up with a disc. I used this system at the recommendation of the computer IT company I used to build my computers. I looked for someone doing computers the way I do medicine, and found this small family owned company that has been very useful to me as they stay up to date on computer things like I try to do with medicine. I used these folks to build the system, set up the network, problem shoot, and fix glitches. I use myself or my family to do ordinary things like downloading and trouble shooting

little problems , attaching new lines, or new hardware. One rule I developed over time is that you can not hire anyone to do anything you do not all ready know something about yourself. If you do, then what happens is you get what the other guy imagines you need, rather than what you do need. So just bite the bullet and look up all the stuff you need. Ask people here. Read. My personal recommendation is not to get stuck in a system in which you do not own your own data. What are you going to do if they mess you over? Can you be sure they won't be bought out by someone who will want to do that? I use SOAPware and in theory will never have to get another dollar's worth of their stuff, but can use what I have forever. I may do so. There are other EMRs that allow for that as well. Good luck on

your set up. Joanne Holland MD/DVM, Drain, OregonLeeclan wrote: How many of you are using in House servers and doing your own backing up of data? Being on Alteer, it is all ASP so that your data is backed up offsite on their server. ECW gives you the option of doing either. With no experience of maintaining the server and doing my own back ups.... I am nervous about this. Do you have to hire a good IT person to help you maintain everything?( especially if you are like me and know little about computer hardware). Does the server ever crash and you can't get into your system? Lee

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[Guest guest]

I have a Mac Powerbook G4 (about $1200) that I use as my main computer (goes everywhere I go), plus about 6 months ago I took my 7 year old Blue & White G3 (upgraded to G4) from home and set it up as a server in the office. It runs the MacPractice practice management server ($4000), which I can also access as a client from the laptop. This is so my new part-time billing person can do billing while I'm doing my own thing on the laptop. I use the standalone version of SpringCharts, chosen mainly because it works on Macs plus it was dirt cheap (relatively speaking, that's $500 worth of dirt). I could get the networked version but since I am solo, see no need for it. SpringCharts has since raised its prices but I don't know the current price. Besides being cheap, I like the fact that the patient data stays in-house. No hostage taking here. Plus I figured if something better comes along, I won't feel as badly moving to another system as I would if I had spent $25,000 which I was quoted from Alteer 2-3 years ago.For backup, I run SuperDuper ($27.95) on the server every night which mirrors the main hard drive to a secondary internal drive. If the main drive ever goes out, I can keep working with no down time (assuming the secondary drive doesn't crash, too). I also run BackJack (about $20/month), which automatically backs up all my selected essential files to 2 offsite servers, on both the office server and my laptop. I also automatically backup essential laptop files to my .Mac account ($99/year). And finally, about once a week, I clone my laptop to an external 300 GB firewire drive ($150). I used to burn data onto CDs but didn't do it regularly. I think the best backup systems are those that happen without you having to lift a finger. I like being in control of my network, something I don't think I could ever do with a Windows system. Unlike LL, we can't all be computer super-geniuses. Everything runs wirelessly. All faxes are received by the server (no more wasted paper on "Last Minute Trips to Cancun!"). I even set up a VPN (Virtual Private Network), so that I can safely access my work server from home. I use the ScanSnap scanner to scan every scrap of paper into a PDF document (16 to 80 KB per page), even though I had to find a Japanese driver to make it work on a Mac. I cannot scan directly into SpringCharts but I can import images and documents. But I chose not to because it was easier just to keep all scanned documents in folders outside the EMR. I have it organized by patient name and I rename all the documents as "lastname.firstname.documentType.date.pdf" so that I can find things easily. And even though it isn't backup/server related, it's tech-related - I am in the process of converting the phone lines from AT & T (about $110/month for 2 lines) to Sunrocket VOIP ($199/year per line). It seems to be working fine so far and I like being able to fetch voicemail from my web browser at home. SetoSouth Pasadena, CA,I use e-mds and have a server. Actually, this was a very expensive part of the system as it is set up in a RAID 5 configuration with tape back-up and thus cost about $7500. Networking (setting it all up so that it talked to my other two computers) cost an additional $2000. I also have an IT guy on retainer so he can update all my stuff monthly (or whenever a Microsoft patch comes out). Ultimately, I would like to get an offsite server that serves as an immediate back-up if my current one dies. So far, however, I have not had to do anything to the server except change the tape every night before I leave.I like the idea of having the information on site, but if I had it to do over, I would find a cheaper way. My server is scalable to 15 docs (yet I only have one). It seems to me that my server is like a typical FP office with a burdensome amount of redundancy. In my streamlined system, I figure there has to be a better way. I also know little about the inner workings of “the box,” and so that is why I outsourced. Yes, the system works well and I have had no real problems in 3.5 years. I just still have some heartburn about the cost. Hope that’s helpful! -----Original Message-----From: [mailto: ] On Behalf Of LeeclanSent: Wednesday, October 04, 2006 3:34 PMTo: Subject: in house servers How many of you are using in House servers and doing your own backing up of data?  Being on Alteer, it is all ASP so that your data is backed up offsite on their server.  ECW gives you  the option of doing either. With no experience of maintaining the server and doing my own back ups.... I am nervous about this.  Do you have to hire a good IT person to help you maintain everything?( especially if you are like me and know little about computer hardware).  Does the server ever crash and you can't get into your system?   Lee

[Guest guest]

I have a Mac Powerbook G4 (about $1200) that I use as my main computer (goes everywhere I go), plus about 6 months ago I took my 7 year old Blue & White G3 (upgraded to G4) from home and set it up as a server in the office. It runs the MacPractice practice management server ($4000), which I can also access as a client from the laptop. This is so my new part-time billing person can do billing while I'm doing my own thing on the laptop. I use the standalone version of SpringCharts, chosen mainly because it works on Macs plus it was dirt cheap (relatively speaking, that's $500 worth of dirt). I could get the networked version but since I am solo, see no need for it. SpringCharts has since raised its prices but I don't know the current price. Besides being cheap, I like the fact that the patient data stays in-house. No hostage taking here. Plus I figured if something better comes along, I won't feel as badly moving to another system as I would if I had spent $25,000 which I was quoted from Alteer 2-3 years ago.For backup, I run SuperDuper ($27.95) on the server every night which mirrors the main hard drive to a secondary internal drive. If the main drive ever goes out, I can keep working with no down time (assuming the secondary drive doesn't crash, too). I also run BackJack (about $20/month), which automatically backs up all my selected essential files to 2 offsite servers, on both the office server and my laptop. I also automatically backup essential laptop files to my .Mac account ($99/year). And finally, about once a week, I clone my laptop to an external 300 GB firewire drive ($150). I used to burn data onto CDs but didn't do it regularly. I think the best backup systems are those that happen without you having to lift a finger. I like being in control of my network, something I don't think I could ever do with a Windows system. Unlike LL, we can't all be computer super-geniuses. Everything runs wirelessly. All faxes are received by the server (no more wasted paper on "Last Minute Trips to Cancun!"). I even set up a VPN (Virtual Private Network), so that I can safely access my work server from home. I use the ScanSnap scanner to scan every scrap of paper into a PDF document (16 to 80 KB per page), even though I had to find a Japanese driver to make it work on a Mac. I cannot scan directly into SpringCharts but I can import images and documents. But I chose not to because it was easier just to keep all scanned documents in folders outside the EMR. I have it organized by patient name and I rename all the documents as "lastname.firstname.documentType.date.pdf" so that I can find things easily. And even though it isn't backup/server related, it's tech-related - I am in the process of converting the phone lines from AT & T (about $110/month for 2 lines) to Sunrocket VOIP ($199/year per line). It seems to be working fine so far and I like being able to fetch voicemail from my web browser at home. SetoSouth Pasadena, CA,I use e-mds and have a server. Actually, this was a very expensive part of the system as it is set up in a RAID 5 configuration with tape back-up and thus cost about $7500. Networking (setting it all up so that it talked to my other two computers) cost an additional $2000. I also have an IT guy on retainer so he can update all my stuff monthly (or whenever a Microsoft patch comes out). Ultimately, I would like to get an offsite server that serves as an immediate back-up if my current one dies. So far, however, I have not had to do anything to the server except change the tape every night before I leave.I like the idea of having the information on site, but if I had it to do over, I would find a cheaper way. My server is scalable to 15 docs (yet I only have one). It seems to me that my server is like a typical FP office with a burdensome amount of redundancy. In my streamlined system, I figure there has to be a better way. I also know little about the inner workings of “the box,” and so that is why I outsourced. Yes, the system works well and I have had no real problems in 3.5 years. I just still have some heartburn about the cost. Hope that’s helpful! -----Original Message-----From: [mailto: ] On Behalf Of LeeclanSent: Wednesday, October 04, 2006 3:34 PMTo: Subject: in house servers How many of you are using in House servers and doing your own backing up of data?  Being on Alteer, it is all ASP so that your data is backed up offsite on their server.  ECW gives you  the option of doing either. With no experience of maintaining the server and doing my own back ups.... I am nervous about this.  Do you have to hire a good IT person to help you maintain everything?( especially if you are like me and know little about computer hardware).  Does the server ever crash and you can't get into your system?   Lee

[Guest guest]

oh, gary, you flatterer! gee, you're doing exactly the same things i am, just with mac-- you must be a computer supergenius! LOL! LLSeto wrote: I have a Mac Powerbook G4 (about $1200) that I use as my main computer (goes everywhere I go), plus about 6 months ago I took my 7 year old Blue & White G3 (upgraded to G4) from home and set it up as a server in the office. It runs the MacPractice practice management server ($4000), which I can also access as a

client from the laptop. This is so my new part-time billing person can do billing while I'm doing my own thing on the laptop. I use the standalone version of SpringCharts, chosen mainly because it works on Macs plus it was dirt cheap (relatively speaking, that's $500 worth of dirt). I could get the networked version but since I am solo, see no need for it. SpringCharts has since raised its prices but I don't know the current price. Besides being cheap, I like the fact that the patient data stays in-house. No hostage taking here. Plus I figured if something better comes along, I won't feel as badly moving to another system as I would if I had spent $25,000 which I was quoted from Alteer 2-3 years ago. For backup, I run SuperDuper ($27.95) on the server every night which mirrors the main hard drive to a secondary internal drive. If the main drive ever goes out, I can keep working with no down time (assuming the secondary

drive doesn't crash, too). I also run BackJack (about $20/month), which automatically backs up all my selected essential files to 2 offsite servers, on both the office server and my laptop. I also automatically backup essential laptop files to my .Mac account ($99/year). And finally, about once a week, I clone my laptop to an external 300 GB firewire drive ($150). I used to burn data onto CDs but didn't do it regularly. I think the best backup systems are those that happen without you having to lift a finger. I like being in control of my network, something I don't think I could ever do with a Windows system. Unlike LL, we can't all be computer super-geniuses. Everything runs wirelessly. All faxes are received by the server (no more wasted paper on "Last Minute Trips to Cancun!"). I even set up a VPN (Virtual Private Network), so that I can safely access my work server from home. I use the ScanSnap scanner to

scan every scrap of paper into a PDF document (16 to 80 KB per page), even though I had to find a Japanese driver to make it work on a Mac. I cannot scan directly into SpringCharts but I can import images and documents. But I chose not to because it was easier just to keep all scanned documents in folders outside the EMR. I have it organized by patient name and I rename all the documents as "lastname.firstname.documentType.date.pdf" so that I can find things easily. And even though it isn't backup/server related, it's tech-related - I am in the process of converting the phone lines from AT & T (about $110/month for 2 lines) to Sunrocket VOIP ($199/year per line). It seems to be working fine so far and I like being able to fetch voicemail from my web browser at home. Seto South Pasadena, CA , I use e-mds and have a server. Actually, this was a very expensive part of the system as it is set up in a RAID 5 configuration with tape back-up and thus cost about $7500. Networking (setting it all up so that it talked to my other two computers) cost an additional $2000. I also have an IT guy on retainer so he can update all my stuff monthly (or whenever a Microsoft patch comes out). Ultimately, I would like to get an offsite server that serves as an immediate back-up if my current one dies. So far, however, I have not had to do anything to the server except change the tape every night before I leave. I like the idea of having the information on site, but if I had it to do over, I would find a cheaper way. My server is scalable to 15 docs (yet I only have one). It seems to me that my server is like a typical FP office with a burdensome amount of redundancy. In my streamlined system, I figure there has to be a better way. I also know little about the inner workings of “the box,” and so that is why I outsourced. Yes, the system works well and I have had no real problems in 3.5 years. I just still have some heartburn about the cost. Hope that’s helpful! -----Original Message-----From: [mailto: ] On Behalf Of LeeclanSent: Wednesday, October 04, 2006 3:34 PMTo: Subject: in house servers How many of you are using in House servers and doing your own backing up of data? Being on Alteer, it is all ASP so that your data is backed up offsite on their server. ECW gives you the option of doing either. With no experience of maintaining the server and doing my own back ups.... I am nervous about this. Do you have to hire a good IT person to help you maintain everything?( especially if you are like me and know little about computer hardware). Does the server ever crash and you can't get into your system? Lee

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[Guest guest]

Ditto postrio wrote: I use eMDs on a Dell Poweredge 2800 in house server for 6 months. Back up data onto tape weekly and take it home. Access from home using GoToMyPC. Biller accesses my billing using GoToMyPC from out of state. System works well, has never crashed. Unlikely you will crash if you have a Raid 5 or higher server (redundant hard drives). You should definitely use an IT person to set up the system including the

backup procedures, but once setup they won't have to come out much. Usually they can troubleshoot problems remotely over the internet. Many IT technicians will do a maintenance agreement to come out and maintain your system for an hour or two per month. ASP versions are very dependent on your local area infrastructure, (ie how far are you from the server you're accessing, etc), so don't jump into an ASP arrangement unless you can demo and ensure the speeds are adequate- ie, you're not sitting around waiting for a screen to refresh like with dial-up internet. joanne holland <joandvmmd> wrote: From Drain, Oregon, I am using an in House server with ethernet (a wired system). Can not use wireless because my office has cement

block walls. The server has a tape backup system by a company called Certance. The tape is used because one way you can lose data is via a virus or trojan, and that would be on your disc if you just back up with a disc. I used this system at the recommendation of the computer IT company I used to build my computers. I looked for someone doing computers the way I do medicine, and found this small family owned company that has been very useful to me as they stay up to date on computer things like I try to do with medicine. I used these folks to build the system, set up the network, problem shoot, and fix glitches. I use myself or my family to do ordinary things like downloading and trouble shooting little problems , attaching new lines, or new hardware. One rule I developed over time is that you can not hire anyone to do anything you do not all ready

know something about yourself. If you do, then what happens is you get what the other guy imagines you need, rather than what you do need. So just bite the bullet and look up all the stuff you need. Ask people here. Read. My personal recommendation is not to get stuck in a system in which you do not own your own data. What are you going to do if they mess you over? Can you be sure they won't be bought out by someone who will want to do that? I use SOAPware and in theory will never have to get another dollar's worth of their stuff, but can use what I have forever. I may do so. There are other EMRs that allow for that as well. Good luck on your set up. Joanne Holland MD/DVM, Drain, OregonLeeclan

<leeclanrochester (DOT) rr.com> wrote: How many of you are using in House servers and doing your own backing up of data? Being on Alteer, it is all ASP so that your data is backed up offsite on their server. ECW gives you the option of doing either. With no experience of maintaining the server and doing my own back ups.... I am nervous about this. Do you have to hire a good IT person to help you maintain everything?( especially if you are like me and know little about computer hardware). Does the server ever crash and you can't get into your system? Lee How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messenger’s low PC-to-Phone call rates. Stay in the know. Pulse on the new Yahoo.com. Check it out.

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