Discover the meaning, principles & benefits of the Shift-Left support model approach & best-practice implementation strategies

IT departments have always lived in a world of balancing two opposing activities with limited resources:

1. Maintaining user productivity by responding when something breaks (an Incident) or a user request for services (a Service Request).
2. "Maximizing the number of successful service and product changes by ensuring that risks have been properly assessed and authorizing changes." ¹

What makes this juggling a challenge is the same high-level skills for planning, testing, and implementing changes are also the same resources required for resolving more complicated escalated incidents. Anyone that works in IT is familiar with firefighting interruptions. You are in your cube with your head around a time-sensitive change project when you receive a new incident that cannot wait. If you only had more people, then you could split the tasks between project management people and operational people. But is that really going to happen? So, what does happen is that you take the time to help out the users and skimp on the change project because projects are also time sensitive.

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The healthcare industry will forever be the target of cyberattacks due to the array of information included in the healthcare record.

With this in mind, the need for cybersecurity is not going away. It is becoming a more predominant focal point in the industry, as you will see shortly. If your organization is struggling to justify the financial cost of adding cybersecurity to yearly budgets, consider asking yourself the following questions:

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Any break in the standard flow of a business can result in severe financial losses. Where do these losses stem from? One of the most expensive business interruptions is IT or system downtime. What is system downtime? It's when a technological "glitch" shuts down production. For healthcare companies, it's when servers shut down and your electronic health records become unavailable. No appointment scheduling. No access to patient records. No processing of payments.

There are some estimates that downtime costs range from $427 per minute for small businesses to as high as $9,000 for large enterprises.

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Change management models are a crucial part of any organization. Healthcare settings in particular are known to be resistant to change and have a lot on the line when it comes to implementation. In order to stay competitive, it is important to know how best to implement change management strategies that will keep your organization running smoothly and efficiently. There are many different models for change management frameworks, but which ones work the best for healthcare?

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Running a startup company is no easy task. You have to worry about hiring the right people, getting customers, and maintaining an efficient workflow. The best way to do all of these things? Build a strong foundation with Software as a Service (SaaS) tools. There are many software options for startups that will help you grow your business in different ways. No matter what stage you are at or what type of business model you use, there is something out there for every company that can help it grow without breaking the bank or taking up all of its time.

Here are 6 ways SaaS can support your startup's operations:

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On the surface, many people identify ransomware as a one-dimensional type of attack that encrypts files and only frees them once payment is received. In theory, this is the basis for most ransomware attacks. Over time, cybercriminals have continued to develop attacks to be more intricate and ultimately more damaging.

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For many organizations, the ITIL Change Management process can seem like a daunting task. It is easy to get caught up in all of the steps and lose sight of what is important. But by following some simple tips, you can foster an environment that cultivates a change management culture within your organization.

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Telehealth can be super convenient, effective, and affordable. With the prevalence of COVID-19, many are now more comfortable with seeking medical advice from the comfort of home, rather than visiting a physical doctor's office. Today, there are many free and confidential telehealth services run by the public health authorities across Canadian provinces and territories. Generally, these services are government-run and match patients with healthcare professionals, all via the phone. Once connected, patients can ask for medical advice on a variety of non-emergency topics. Most of the subject matter will revolve around healthcare professionals advising patients whether or not the particular condition is something that can be managed at home, or something that should be referred to in-person care.

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Is your healthcare model using multiple devices or complex applications to manage patient information? This can cause many complications and consume much precious time that could otherwise go towards providing the best possible care for people in need. Instead of having to manage all these different types of pieces, your healthcare team can have more control over patient data in an easier way.

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