Opening another location is exciting.
There are leases to negotiate, rooms to design, equipment to order, employees to hire, signage to install, and dozens of decisions that have nothing to do with technology.
IT can easily become something everyone plans to deal with later.
After all, you just need some computers, internet access, phones, and a connection to the EHR. How complicated can it be?
In an eye care practice, surprisingly complicated.
Technology touches almost every part of a new location. The front desk needs scheduling and check-in access. Doctors need the EHR and clinical applications. Diagnostic devices need to communicate correctly. Employees need phones, email, printers, scanners, cybersecurity protections, and access to the systems used at other locations.
If those pieces are planned early, opening day can feel relatively uneventful. If they are planned late, small technology problems can quickly turn into delayed patients, frustrated employees, and vendors pointing at one another.
Here are some of the areas practices should think about well before the first patient walks through the door.
Start With Internet Service Earlier Than You Think
Internet service is one of the least exciting parts of opening a location, but it is also one of the easiest things to underestimate.
Business internet installation may require more lead time than expected. A building may not have the service options you assumed it did. Construction may be required to bring a connection into the suite, or the available providers may offer different speeds and service levels.
Waiting until a few weeks before opening to order internet can create an unnecessary problem.
Before signing up, consider how dependent the practice will be on connectivity. If the EHR, phones, patient communication systems, payment processing, and other applications are cloud-based, an internet outage could affect much of the office at once.
For some practices, a secondary internet connection or failover option may be worth considering. The right choice depends on the location, the systems being used, and how much downtime the practice can tolerate.
The important part is deciding intentionally rather than discovering the dependency during the first outage.
Plan the Network Before the Walls Are Finished
Construction is another reason IT should be involved early.
If walls are open and contractors are already running electrical wiring, that is often the best time to think about network cabling, wireless access points, phones, printers, workstations, security equipment, and clinical devices.
Where will the front-desk computers sit? Which exam rooms need network connections? What equipment will be installed in testing areas? Are ceiling-mounted wireless access points needed? Will a server or network equipment require a secure location?
Trying to add network cabling after everything is painted and finished can cost more and create unnecessary disruption.
It is also worth thinking beyond today's floor plan. If you expect to add another workstation or piece of equipment later, a little planning now may prevent another construction project later.
Clinical Equipment Needs to Be Part of the Technology Plan
An eye care office is not a generic office.
OCTs, visual field analyzers, retinal imaging systems, topographers, and other devices may have specific network, workstation, software, or data requirements.
Some equipment comes with a vendor-supplied computer. Other devices need to communicate with an EHR, server, shared storage location, or cloud platform.
Your IT provider should know what is being installed and what each vendor expects from the network.
Ideally, vendor coordination happens before installation day. That allows IT to confirm cabling, network requirements, IP addressing, security considerations, and other technical needs.
Otherwise, you risk having an expensive clinical device arrive only for the installer to discover that something necessary is missing.
Decide How the New Location Connects to the Rest of the Practice
A multi-location practice has another layer of complexity: the locations cannot always be treated as completely separate offices.
Employees may need access to the same EHR, files, printers, phone systems, or cloud applications. Doctors may work at multiple locations. Staff may need to communicate or transfer information between sites.
How that connectivity works depends on the systems the practice uses.
Some applications are entirely cloud-based, making access relatively straightforward. Others may depend on servers or applications hosted at one location. Certain devices may store information locally.
The important part is mapping those dependencies before the new office opens.
You should also think about what happens if one location loses connectivity. Does the outage affect only that office, or does it interfere with resources used by other locations?
A well-designed setup should avoid making one location an unnecessary single point of failure whenever practical.
Standardize Where It Makes Sense
Opening another location is a good opportunity to decide what should be standardized across the practice.
Using similar workstation configurations, network equipment, cybersecurity protections, naming conventions, and support processes can make the environment much easier to manage.
Imagine one location uses one type of firewall, another uses something completely different, and every workstation was purchased independently at different times. Supporting that environment becomes more complicated as the practice grows.
Standardization does not mean every location has to be identical. Clinical needs and layouts may differ.
The goal is consistency where consistency provides value.
Employees also benefit. If the login process, security procedures, ticketing method, and general technology experience are similar between locations, moving from one office to another is easier.
Build Cybersecurity Into the Location From Day One
Cybersecurity should not be something added after the location opens.
New employee accounts should be configured correctly from the beginning. Devices should be protected and patched. MFA should be implemented where appropriate. Network equipment should be securely configured, and unnecessary access should be avoided.
A new location can also change the practice's overall risk picture.
There may be more employees, additional workstations, another network, more equipment, and new ways of accessing information.
Opening a new location is exactly the kind of operational change that should prompt the practice to think again about how ePHI is being accessed, transmitted, and protected.
Do Not Forget Physical Security
Technology security is not only digital.
Where will network equipment be located? Is it sitting under the reception desk where anyone can reach it, or is it in a more controlled space?
Can visitors walk into areas containing servers or networking equipment? Are computers positioned so patient information is unnecessarily visible to people passing by? What happens to equipment after hours?
A beautifully designed office can still create technology problems if important equipment is placed somewhere insecure, hot, dusty, or difficult to service.
These are easier decisions to make during the planning stage than after furniture has already been installed.
Think About Phones and Communication Early
Phone systems often depend on the network and internet connection, particularly with modern VoIP systems.
How will calls route between locations? Will each office have its own main number? Can employees transfer calls from one location to another? What happens if the internet goes down?
Practices should also consider internal communication. If the offices need to communicate frequently, employees should know the approved method rather than creating informal workarounds.
Communication planning becomes especially important during downtime or an emergency, when one location may need help from another.
Plan the Hardware Before Ordering Random Computers
It is easy to buy computers as rooms are completed, but a hardware plan usually works better.
Different roles may have different needs. A front-desk workstation may have one set of requirements, while a workstation supporting imaging equipment may have another.
Your IT provider can help establish appropriate specifications and make sure new hardware will be supportable for a reasonable lifecycle.
This also creates an opportunity to establish an inventory from the beginning rather than trying to reconstruct it years later.
Documenting computers, network equipment, warranties, users, and clinical-device connections should be part of opening the location, not a project someone eventually gets around to.
Test the Location Before Opening Day
The first full test of the technology should not happen when the first patient arrives.
Before opening, staff should test the workflows they actually use. Can employees sign in? Can they access the EHR? Do printers work? Can the front desk scan documents? Are phones routing correctly? Can doctors access the information they need? Are clinical devices communicating the way they should?
Test from the perspective of a normal patient visit.
Walk through check-in, testing, the exam, checkout, and communication between staff. That can reveal small issues that a basic "the computers turn on" test will miss.
It is much easier to discover a missing printer configuration on Thursday than at 8:05 Monday morning with six patients in the waiting room.
Opening a Location Is a Technology Project Too
IT may not be the most visible part of opening a new eye care location, but it is one of the systems that connects almost everything else.
Internet, phones, workstations, clinical devices, cybersecurity, cloud applications, user accounts, and vendors all need to work together by opening day.
The best approach is to bring IT into the project early enough that technology can be planned alongside construction, equipment, and staffing.
A useful question is not simply, "Do we have computers and internet?"
Ask:
"Could our team walk into this location tomorrow and complete an entire patient visit without discovering a technology problem we forgot to plan for?"
If the answer is yes, opening day is much more likely to feel the way it should: like the start of a new chapter for the practice rather than an emergency IT project.