WHY in the world would anyone do business with us?

In trying to grapple with what kind of customers we do best with, and what sort of employees do best @ Turn Key Solutions, I'm asking myself for the 984th time, "Why does Turn Key Solutions exist?   Why do I come to work every day?"

Here's what I've scribbled, scratched, and drawn out over the last few weeks:  

My partners and I, and our key employees, and, I think, all of our employees actually believe the following things (I believe so, because these are the things we constantly talk about, these are things we discuss in the lunchroom, these ideas are the heart of our conversations all the time.):

What Turn Key Solutions really thinks:

... that small businesses are terribly important (and borderline almost sacred), and that they shouldn't be taken advantage of.

... that every time our customers win, we win.   Not because they're going to give us money, or PO's, or references, but because we were a part of that victory.

... that business owners and employees need success for the american dream to happen

... that customers need to be protected because every time a business fails, families suffer and dreams fail.

... that in an industry as dynamic as Information Technology, businesses need reliable, proven solutions to safeguard their budgets.

... that rapidly evolving technologies often have an important place in the business environment

... that our depth and breadth of experience, our passion for our clients' success, and our appreciation for reliable technologies creates a culture whereby we can dramatically help clients that will PARTNER with us, TRUST us, and COMMUNICATE with us.

So maybe instead of talking about how big our office is, or how awesome we are, I need to start communicating with the world about what we believe.   

Because everybody thinks they're an I.T. company.   Heck, there's 2 other IT companies within a stone's throw of our front door.   Probably 5 within a 1 mile radius.   But what makes us different?   The above stuff - how we think, the filters through which we run every decision.

Are we the right I.T. partner for every company in the Gulf South USA?   Nope.   But I do believe there are plenty of people that think the same way we do.

And that's enough business for us.   

After all, when it really comes down to it, why do we come to work?   To provide for our families and to help someone so that at the end of the day, we hopfully can know that we made  difference to the people that trust us.

That's why.

What we do best

After being in business since 1999, it's dizzying to think of the sheer volume of products and solutions we've tested, tried, chucked out the window, and/or supported for 13 years now.

Thousands, I guess.  

And in the end, that's okay.  It's good - after all, Info Tech is a changing, dynamic industry by its nature.   

So take some dramamine, and stop spinning - that's what I always tell myself.   Then, let's focus on our primary goal here: protect our clients and help them grow.  

And how do we do that?   I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED...   

I working on updating our website to the new Joomla 2.5 CMS, and updating our "products and services" page - check it out here.   Short version, though is that here is what we focus on:

Solutions Consulting - figuring out the best way to meet a new need, a new business problem every day.   

Security & Compliance - keeping our clients' data secure, and keeping them in front of ever-changing legal and industry regulations.

Cloud Services - "cloud" stuff is cool because it's the best way to meet a lot of business goals.  BUT NOT ALL OF THEM.   Our job is to help clients figure out when it's a fit, and then pick from the 9 million cloud vendors out there.

Complete I.T. Management - day in, day out, 24 x 7 x 365, we watch our clients' infrastructure, we protect them, we staff them with caring & competent IT professionals, and we just make stuff work.

Hardware & Software - after reviewing so many products, we know what works good.   That's why we sell stuff - because we are trying to make it easy for our clients to get the right parts.   Certainly not because there's tons of profit in hardware anymore. :(

Disaster prep & recovery - few things stink worse than losing data.   Except poopy diapers, maybe.  (I have 5 kids and 2 decades of IT experience, still not sure which stinks worse, honestly.)

Healthcare I.T. Specialization - somehow we've gotten a ridiculous amount of experience helping healthcare clients with every aspect of their business, and we love it.  It's one of the specialized industries we really enjoy and focus on.

So that's it.   That's what we do best.   Somehow, website design is no longer on that list.   So if our site isn't perfect, we'll get around to that.   But in the meantime, I've got customers' problems to fix first. 

I'm emailing you 1.5 million bucks... (HIPAA / HITECH Part 4: Email Security, ePHI & HIPAA)

How many times have you accidentally emailed something you wish you hadn't?   Forgotten to remove someone's address from a "reply all?"

These sort of simple, unintentional slip-ups can LITERALLY COST YOU MILLIONS in this age of enforced penalties for HITECH / HIPAA breaches.

If your organization handles Protected Healthcare Information (PHI), and you want a way to protect yourself from this scenario, read on...

Quick recap:  here's the quick summary of our suggestions on how to get started with HIPAA & HITECH compliance:

If you've not done it, though, I cannot stress enough the importance of #1 - The Self Assessment.   You simply have to get a good baseline for where you stand.    CALL US  for more details.   (Hint - it can probably be done very well for under $100 / mo)

Now that you've done your self-assessment....









On to an important part of #7 - EMAIL ENCRYPTION.

The HHS specifically addresses email security in several documents.   An easy read is one of the "Safeguards" documents you can find right here.

Specifically, is email encryption mandated for all transfer of ePHI?   No.

BUT......    the safeguard principle that colors every aspect of compliance states the following:

SAFEGUARDS PRINCIPLE: Individually identifiable health information should be protected with reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to ensure its confidentiality, integrity, and availability and to prevent unauthorized or inappropriate access, use, or disclosure.

AND.....  there are very, very clear commentaries in several places that email is allowed under very specific situations.

AND... there are new cases of organizations (BA's and CE's) accidentally breaching PHI with email....  most of the time accidentally!

AND.... keep in mind that the annual max fines are between $25,000 and $1.5 Million dollars.   Not sure about you, but even getting slapped with a $25k fine would be enough to really irritate me.


So, if it's now cost-effective and technically simple to encrypt all PHI that may be transmitted via your email servers, would it' it seem reasonable?



Without hammering this point needlessly, I would suggest you look into how simple the solutions are for encrypting your clients' email.

While there are several great vendors on the market now, we sell and recommend the solutions from ZIXCORP.   They're the leaders in this industry, and we simply have not seen a cheaper, more flexible, more powerful solution on the market place.   Their basic ZixMail solution that will protect PHI and keep your email secure costs between $4 and $10 / user / month for most of our clients, depending on their size & specific needs.

From $4 to $10 / user / month.    And this issue is put to bed.

And you don't have to worry about your staff accidentally emailing out up to $1.5 MILLION worth of breaches.

Seems like a "reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards" to put in place to me.

Curious?   Want to see a demo?   Contact us at www.tkshealth.com or read more at www.zixcorp.com.

AAAAGGHHH!!! We're growing again!!!! (Are you coming to see us anytime soon???)

You heard it right!   

Turn Key Solutions is excited to announce that we just brought on board two additional technicians.    That's after screening almost 200 resumes, putting about 30 through basic screening, and more interviews that I want to admit.   We're picky - we looked long and hard for technicians with the skills to do the job, the heart to take care of clients, and the personality that will be a joy to work with.

But, the good news is that with these two new guys, we've added about 13 years of experience to our team, and they fit our culture and our client needs really well.

So, yes, as a small business owner, it's a little scary to add on staff.  But it was time - we've been working our technicians a little too hard for the last year, and we needed the extra capacity to meet the growth of projects our clients are firing up. 

Oh, and did I mention that we moved offices, for the first time in over 11 years?    Yup!   In the last 4 years we've gone from using 2500 square feet to now we have about 7500 square feet of office space.    The big upshot?   We are planning on using the new space to add some great services to our clients and community.   Already we've been able to host one neighborhood community event on-site, and we're working to be able to have an open house or two in the upcoming days.

Needless to say, we are thankful to be so blessed on so many fronts, and we really look forward to finding new and better ways to bless our community and our clients in 2012.

SO....   drop on by, meet our long-term and new staff, and come grow with us!

-Henry Overton

Here's what's big for TKS in 2012... (Subtitle: New Years' resolutions are stupid.)

Congratulations!  You've made it through the first month of 2012.


And, if you're like most people I know, you've quietly forgotten about most of your new years' resolutions.  (Quit eating greasy burgers in the car, stop watching Dancing with the Stars, etc, etc...)


If you're like a lot of small business owners I know, though, you're just getting started with your business goals.


Better yet, you may just be formalizing your goals for 2012.


At Turn Key Solutions & Turn Key Health, we're refining our business goals every day.   The most significant goals we've got all work to meet our new, refined vision statement:

Turn Key Solutions empowers businesses across the Gulf South region to focus on what they do best by providing technology teams and environments our clients can depend upon, grow with, and enjoy interacting with. 


We are passionate about providing the best solutions, excellent customer service, and overall excellent experiences for our customers EVERY DAY.

So this isn't quite as full of flair as the "Holstee Manifesto" but it captures everything we see in Jim Collin's "Good to Great" "Hedgehog Principle" -


1. What is Turn Key Solutions passionate about? - Harold Robinson and I (Henry Overton), as founders, really are passionate about technology.  We love it.  That's why our new office has thermostats with I.P. addresses.   It's why we actually enjoy reading the manuals for firewalls, operating systems, and our dvd players.


2. What can Turn Key Solutions be the best in the world at? -  I truly believe we can be best at these:

A. Custom crafting top-quality business technology solutions designed exactly, perfectly for our business partners (ie, clients) and


B. Providing an excellent customer service experience, every time.

3. What drives our economic engine?   Service, service, and more service.   Some specialized solutions do have better profit margins, yes, but it's been 15 years since any regional I.T. company made real money reselling computers.   




SO....  All that said, here goes our biggest goals for the year:


1. Provide excellent customer experiences, and excellent solutions, every time.   


              closely followed by...


2. Get the word out that we're doing this, and carefully grow our client base.


If you have any feedback already on how we're doing, PLEASE LET US KNOW!




So.... now that we've shown our cards, how are your goals coming for the year?

We've got a lot to be thankful for.

@ Turn Key Solutions we have so much to be thankful for that even on the Monday after Thanksgiving, it's still hard to write this list & not miss something.   But here's a start...

We're thankful for our customers. We appreciate your support and your loyalty more than we can express. We are so blessed to have the opportunity to serve people, to make your day better, and to make your technology work so that you can make things happen.

We're thankful for our opportunities and our freedoms here in the USA.

We're thankful for God's blessings on our country, our business, and our families.

We're thankful for our courageous military and their families that give up so much to protect our freedoms.

We're thankful for our team members.   (Interesting aside - we recently took an in-house survey, and every one of us, without exception, listed their primary motivator as "Helping People.")

We're thankful for our new office.    YES!  You heard it first right here!   Over the next 4 weeks, we're moving about 4 miles over to a much nicer, bigger office building.   We are looking forward to launching a whole new series of customer training sessions in our brand new office.   Stay tuned - we'll have an open house soon, and you'll be invited!

Okay, I could go on quite a bit here.   We've got so many great customers, employees, vendors, solutions, opportunities and blessings all around, that all I know to do is say "Thank You.".  
And brace yourself.   2012 is going to be a great year.

Our entire team and I look forward to hearing from you and helping you as you make the most of your blessings and opportunities too.

Sincerely, 

I don't need no stinking risk assessment. (HIPAA, HITECH & YOUR TECH Part 3)

In our previous blog about HIPAA & HITECH compliance we walked through a simple outline of steps towards meeting HIPAA / HITECH compliance, all of which are based on a walk-though of the HIPAA administrative simplifications.

Quick recap - step 1 is to familiarize yourself with the law and get a team together that can help you be compliant.   HERE's  a great document from HHS on how to do the risk assessment.

STEP #2 - The next step is  do a risk assessment.

"THIS IS STUPID.  WHY?" you ask.   "I know my risks.  I don't need you to tell me what my risks are."

Well, forget the fact that the HHS expects you to do it.  How about looking at this from a PURELY BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE.

What would you do if one of your employees accidentally lost a box of your patient charts?

What would you do if a major hurricane was coming?



What about if your practice was hit by a tornado?   Could you EVER recover your business data?  Collections reports?  Patient charts?


The shocking thing for me, as a consultant, is how QUICKLY we forget things like the Joplin tornadoes , and hurricanes Gustav and Katrina.

I WANT YOU
to give me your patients' data,
and all your money.   

But as a business owner or manager (and that's what you are, even though your business is healthcare..), here's the biggest threat you've got: UNCLE SAM.










SO, if you adhere to HIPAA / HITECH regulations, obamacare, or whatever you want to call it, great.  You're already looking for compliance solutions & doing your homework.

BUT IF YOU DON'T believe that HIPAA & HITECH are real threats to you, then forget about the risk assessment as a HIPAA mandate, but DON'T OVERLOOK IT AS A SOUND BUSINESS PRACTICE.

So, if you're interested, here's what your Risk Assessment should look like:

1. It should be periodic.   The world changes, your business changes, and risk factors change.  Your assessment from 2005 is outdated, refresh it or start a new one.

2. You should be involved in it.  If you pay a consultant to do it 100%, it won't reflect your organization accurately.

3. Your assessment should be thorough.   HIPAA law (164.308(a)(1)(ii)(A) states that you should assess the vulnerabilities to the
         A. Confidentiality
         B. Integrity, and
         C. Availability of electronic protected health information (ePHI) held by the covered entity.

SO HOW DO YOU DO A RISK ASSESSMENT?

Our recommendation is to use a company called eGestalt.
WHY?

1. For most practices, their solution costs at or under about $100 / month.
2. It's a secure offsite repository for your compliance plan.
3. It's built and maintained by a team of people who do nothing but obsess over security compliance, so they're keeping it up-to-date.
4. Simple reporting - with a few clicks, you can see in color and in pictures EXACTLY how compliant you are.
5. Comprehensive reporting - with a few clicks, you can pull an extensive report on your compliance status, complete with your supporting policies & documents, to provide an auditor.
6. It's HIPAA / HITECH simplified - all throughout the process of their assessments, you're provided both detailed links to the actual law, and also great explanations & templates for how to meet the legal requirements.

Are there options out there?

You bet.

But this one is a cheap, simple and comprehensive way for you to meet this incredibly important part of HIPAA & HITECH.   And it's proven, reliable, and industry-accepted as a strong solution.

So, when you're ready, CALL US at  225-751-4444 or visit us online at www.TKSHEALTH.COM to learn more or to get started on your audit.

http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/enforcement/cmscompliancerev08.pdf