I’ve loved animals ever since I was a kid, so it was natural that I’d grow up and head off to veterinary school. After graduating and putting in a few years at someone else’s practice, I finally had the experience and savings to fulfill my dream of opening my own office.
Things were slow-paced at first, but when people started discovering the quality of care we offered and how relaxed and comfortable their animals were in our environment, we were soon booked up on a day-to-day basis. As my practice grew, so did the paperwork. I realized that we had to move to digital storage in order to keep organized.
At first, we simply tried to create spreadsheets and other documents and store them locally on our office computers. This was clunky and frustrating, and we struggled to share files from one computer to the next before a friend of one of my technicians set up a rudimentary network for us. We had no idea what we were doing.
The situation was made even worse by the threat of potential hacking, as many customers wanted us to keep their credit card information on file. Without the proper security, we knew we were susceptible to cybercrime. If organizations as large as Target and Home Depot can be breached, we certainly knew that our little office was a prime target. For a while, we refused to keep sensitive financial data on file because we weren’t sure how to properly secure it.
Another problem was backing up and accessing all of our data. In an industry like ours, we need quick and easy access to our customers’ files. This doesn’t only apply when we’re at the office; I’ll often get a call from a frantic pet parent while I’m at home or away from my office and need to look at their records from afar.
Finally, we called in the experts from Virtix IT. I’d always thought of IT companies as organizations whose services were only needed by other high-tech companies, but our little veterinary practice benefited greatly from their expertise. Virtix offers services that range from end user computing and cloud computing to software-defined datacenters and datacenter networking.
In no time, they had streamlined our operations, creating a quick and secure network, backing up our data to the cloud, and designing a system through which we could safely access customer data remotely. In addition to all of this, we can now store customer credit card data in a secure and legal manner – making things much more convenient for our two-legged and four-legged clients.
Running a small business is hard enough without added complexity. Working with experienced IT specialists has given me huge peace of mind and the ability to focus my attention on the furry people who need it most.
