Netgain

Every three to four years, healthcare practices go through a refresh and upgrade cycle that causes stress on human and financial resources. As an alternative to the traditional refresh cycle, many practices are evaluating their cloud options and how it affects those same human and financial resources.

In Part I of our IT costs series, we explored how to know if your practice is ready for a hardware or software refresh. Part II discussed three considerations when planning your refresh. In this final part of our series, we analyze the total cost of IT ownership and how it compares to a private cloud model.

Has it been three to four years since you last refreshed your servers? Are your users frustrated because of slow workstations? Before you go out and purchase all new servers and workstations, there are factors to consider to ensure your refresh is done efficiently, strategically and economically.

Hardware and software refreshes are often viewed as expensive capital investments that never last long enough. When properly planned for, though, refreshes can enable your practice’s growth by boosting productivity and user satisfaction.

Even with cloud adoption, practices still face cyclical hardware and software upgrades for on-premise technology assets like workstations, kiosks and mobile devices. How do you know if your practice needs a refresh? How much will it cost? Do you have the staff support necessary for this kind of refresh?