Does Windows 7 make sense for home health agencies?

After the bust known as Microsoft Vista, is Windows 7 a boon for mobile workers and their employers?

According to Jason Arnold, co-founder of InPower, a technology consulting company, Windows 7 is a definite improvement in terms of connectivity, security and efficiency for the home healthcare industry.

"Windows 7 has new functionality built in compared to XP," Arnold says. "There are huge improvements over Vista with performance and overall speed. Vista was a bloated, inefficient operating system with extensive hardware requirements. It's easier to access information with Windows 7; the system is more logical so it's easier to find what you're looking for. And, of great importance to organizations with mobile workers, Windows 7 is more secure than previous operating systems."

Easier Network Connections!
One of the advantages of Windows 7 for home health agencies is that it allows you to set up different profiles for different networks. So your employee can have one profile set up for work and another for home.

"Windows 7 recognizes where you are connected so there's no reconfiguring," says Arnold. "The major cost savings associated with point-of-care-computing come from the elimination of travel to and from the office. This requires a daily download and upload of cases, or a "live" Terminal Services or VPN connection from home to the office. And yet, once in the office, the automatic reconfiguration to the office network can create a seamless transition."

So which version should our agency buy?
There are three primary versions of Windows 7. Your software vendor will probably determine the lowest version that you can run, however the new security features should be of special interest to home care agencies. The Ultimate version has an automatic encryption security feature called Bitlocker, which protects laptops and other portable storage devices such as USB flash drives and external hard drives.

"With Bitlocker, if an employee's laptop is stolen, none of the data is accessible," Arnold says. "Although the electronic health records (EHRs) managed by your point-of-care software should already be encrypted, consider all the other forms of individually identifiable health information they may carry on their laptop, such as email, faxes, letters and spreadsheets for special studies."

If you recall, the Department of Health and Human Services' recently issued data breach rules for personal health records. Currently, organizations that secure health information using encryption are not required to file a notification in the event of a breach if the organization determines the access, use or disclosure doesn't pose a significant risk of financial, reputational or other harm to individuals.

Technology and home health
The release of Windows 7 coincides with the release of The BlackBerry® Report: The National State of the Home Care Industry, a study of technology and home care strategies, released at the National Association for Home Care and Hospice (NAHC) conference in October. The study found that about two-thirds of agencies have an electronic medical records system (EMRs), and users say EMRs improve quality of care coordination. Furthermore, about 40 percent of agencies-typically agencies over $10 million-also use some form of point-of-care system in the field, primarily laptops and notebooks.

As the healthcare world slowly marches towards a paperless society, all-in-one computing systems such as tablet laptops may facilitate and accelerate this transition. For example, healthcare workers can electronically fill in standard forms and documents and have their client digitally sign the form, which is then stored electronically as part of the client's health records. Windows 7 supports the touch screen and optical recognition software required to implement this activity.

"This is taking the standard medical clipboard and making it electronic," explains Arnold. "Leading edge practices are already using this technology, but it depends on each agency's business requirements whether this makes sense. The business requirements drive technology decisions. If you have a standard document that you use on an on-going basis, using a tablet pc or all in one device makes sense."

According to the Blackberry study, despite the increasing prevalence of electronic medical records, 88 percent of agencies still use some level of a paper-based system. This is time consuming, redundant and increases the likelihood important information will slip through the cracks.

"Document management systems enhance the usability of electronic health records by allowing you to save, index and search records quickly and efficiently," Arnold says. "They have OCR [optical character recognition] built right in. You can also add Meta tags to make the files more searchable."

Should you upgrade to Windows 7?
Arnold says he normally recommends clients wait until after the first Service Pack before upgrading to a new operating system. However, after extensive testing, he's recommending Windows 7-when it makes sense.

""XP is an extremely stable operating system," he says. If you're running XP with no problems, stay put. We're starting to recommend Windows 7 as clients purchase new computers. It has a lot of functionality for small business owners, including ease of use, connecting to the network, and sharing files and information across the network and built in security."

Another thing to consider before upgrading to Windows 7 is whether your electronic health record and practice management systems are compatible with Windows 7.

Microsoft is also releasing a newer version of its server operating system, Windows Server 2008 R2. Arnold says if your current server environment is three or four years old, you may need to upgrade. If you are running Windows Server 2008, you should be able to upgrade to R2.

Carefully weigh the benefits and costs, including employee training, as you consider whether to upgrade your current operating system.

"It's not always about the leading-edge technology but business solutions that make sense," says Arnold.

Jason Arnold is co-founder of InPower, which provides cost effective, enterprise-level technology solutions to small and medium-size businesses nationwide.