The article linked below discusses a number of ways older computers can be re-purposed. Many of these ideas could be put to work in a dental office. For example an out of date treatment room computer could be re-purposed as a media center to provide on demand music for patients.

However if you must get rid of an old machine not only do we have a duty to dispose of electronics responsibly, as dental professionals we have an even bigger obligation to insure that personal patient data cannot be recovered from any items we dispose of.

It is not enough to simply erase the data or put it in the “Recycle Bin”. Data in the recycle bin is not really erased it is just orphaned with no pointers to find it, but it is still there and an expert can easily recover it. You need to completely destroy the data by writing over the disk segments multiple times or reformatting the disk.

Doing this yourself is tricky so unless you are geekish either get your IT support team to do it for you or check out an application like KillDisk.

We buy a lot of electronics in this country, and that means we throw a lot of electronics away, as well

via How to Reuse or Recycle Your Old Tech | PCMag.com.

From PC Magazine

The Best Antivirus for 2012 | PCMag.com.

From the WSJ

Take a moment to imagine what it would be like to live robustly to the ripe old age of 100 or more. You wouldnt die of any particular illness, and you wouldnt gradually waste away under the spell of some awful, enfeebling disease…Most of the conditions that kill us, including cancer and heart disease, could be prevented or delayed by a new way of looking at and treating health…

via The Future of Personalized Medicine – WSJ.com.

Related to this book I am reading right now:

Both the WSJ article by Dr. Davis Agus  and the book forsee a future where we can use digital technology to scan our physiology constantly to better understand our health and prevent disease. That is both as an individual and as a species.

One of the future systems that will make this possible is a huge data base of health information that can be searched and used to better understand and treat disease. For example Dr. Agus writes:

The database might show, for example, that people with a particular genetic profile respond to one type of cancer treatment but not another.

I completely agree in theory. However at this time I believe that most people do not trust the Internet or if you prefer “The Cloud” to keep their personal data private. When we are faced with news reports of significant Internet security failures on a regular basis it is understandable why people feel this way. Despite government privacy rules and industry assurances the perception is that online data is not secure.

Another huge factor holding back the adaptation of a universal medical data base is politics. There are many very large stake holders in the medical industry including, hospitals, biomedical insustry, government, pharmacuticals, insurers and of course pysicians and patients. These groups all want control of the future EHR and who has access to the data. In the meantime they can not even agree on what must be or should be or might be part of the EHR.

How about making a resolution to improve your password security for 2012? The web site How Secure Is My Password?. can help. You can enter a password or potential password and the site evaluates it for you.

I typed in several. For some I was informed that my password was so common it could be hacked in seconds. Others were better and would take a hacker three or four days to break. The problem is that supposedly the best passwords contain upper and lower case, symbols and numbers. Very secure and impossible to remember.

Another approach is to use actual words strung together in a nonsense order that you can remember. For example envision a pig delivering a speech to congress. This is a reminder for the password swineaddresssenate. Which according to How Secure Is My Password?. will take about three billion years to break.

In the dental office we fequently just write the password on a sticky note and stick it to the computer.

Many of the passwords are sequential numbers like “12345″ or “654321,” while others contained messages like “letmein” and “trustno1″. Even if you thought you were being clever with “qazwsx,” (look at your keyboard, you’ll get it) it’s number 23 on the list. “Monkey,” “password,” and “qwerty” are ALWAYS on these lists.

via The 25 Worst Passwords of 2011 | News & Opinion | PCMag.com#fbid=fN5a4E6bP-1#fbid=fN5a4E6bP-1#fbid=fN5a4E6bP-1.

From PC Magazine:

Perhaps the greatest distinction we give, however, is our Best of the Year Awards, which are presented to those products that truly dazzle us.

Best of the year in these catagories:

via The Best Products of 2011 | PCMag.com.

Great infographic from Mashable

Protecting Your Online Reputation: 4 Things You Need to Know.

How important are your computer files? When asked here is what people said:

50 percent would rather lose all of their vacation time for an entire year than lose all of the files on their computer.

38 percent of married Americans feel that it would be worse to lose everything on their computer than to lose their wedding ring.

62 percent said they would pay to get back their lost data if their computer crashed, 21 percent said they would pay $500, and 27 percent said they would pay as much as they needed to.

34% would give up beer and wine for a year.

via How to Choose an Online Backup Service | PCMag.com.

As precious as our personal computer files are to us, our dental business records are even more important. Backing up our office computer files is essential. The best backup solution in most cases is an automatic online service.

The linked PC Mag article above addresses the subject for personal use however many of the issues and options are equally relevant to business use. In dentistry we have the added obligation of HIPAA compliance.

Some dental backup systems only cover your Practice Management System (like Dentrix). That’s not good enough. You need to protect all your data including checkbook (like QuickBooks) photos, radiographs, word documents, and even e-mail archives.

Most dentists are aware enough to register their primary software like Dentrix or Eaglesoft. However we often use general business applications as well, everything from QuickBooks to Adobe Acrobat and it is easy to neglect to register these seemingly secondary applications. The linked PC Magazine story makes the case that registering these products can save you a lot of time money and hassle just in case.

Everyone knows they’re supposed to register software. Who could overlook the bright slip of paper that nags you to navigate to a webpage and complete an online form. But let’s be honest, for most of us, registration falls casualty to the excitement of installing the latest game, or the anxiety of getting that security suite loaded. However, with today’s Web-aware software, all it takes is one hard drive failure to cost you a pricey software license. Reader Mark Mattson shares how he averted his security nightmare.

via .

As much as I love high tech I reluctantly admit that the same systems that make sharing information quick and easy also make it quick and easy for people to steal from us. The linked article is from Price Kong a local CPA firm that works with many dentists, including me.

Health care practices that have a strong system of internal controls, a keen awareness of anti-fraud measures, and a desire to fraud-proof their business are less likely to suffer losses from fraud. Use this checklist to assess how much fraud exposure your practice has.

The check list is a good place to start. Some items seem obvious, others not so much. Sadly the stories I hear from dentists who have been embezzled always start the same. They never would have guessed that (Mary) was a thief, she seemed like such a great employee always ready to help out, a nice person they trusted completely.

via Is Your Practice At Risk? Try Our Fraud Checklist – Articles – Price Kong CPAs, Consultants.