Prioritizing Cybersecurity

Making Progress on Strategic IT Priorities

2022 HAS BEEN A VERY ACTIVE YEAR on both the IT and IT Security sides of the house. We have had a tremendous amount of work done over the year and will continue this speed in 2023. When I first started at DCA, I shared my top 3 strategic priorities, which still ring true today. Those priorities are:

• System Standardization

• IT Security program acceleration

• IT organization maturity

Chris Scott Chief Information and Security Officer

Ally Since 2021

On the system standardization front we have completed several projects and have made significant advancements in others. Our Denticon conversion strategy has led to

45 office conversions in 2022, which was inclusive of all legacy QSI/CPS locations. We will continue conversions in 2023, with FDC first on the docket. We have another full year of Denticon conversions to complete.

The team has completed the conversion of all legacy phone systems to Weave. In the beginning of 2022, DCA had 20 different legacy phone systems, and now all DCA offices have been transitioned to Weave. It is exciting to know we have one telephony platform across the entire enterprise. As we continue to grow our footprint and mature our experience with Weave, we will work to turn on new features and functionality to help improve our offices productivity.

Lastly, we have started to progress in our Cloud Imaging initiative and have started to convert to Apteryx Imaging where possible. We anticipate 2023 to be a year of conversions as we work to get local images to the cloud so they can be more easily shared across offices.

On the IT Security front, we continue to implement tools and processes to make our environment more secure. In addition to our endpoint security and data loss prevention tools deployed in 2021, we have implemented a privileged access management system to protect Admin accounts. We are also still in process of deploying an identity and access management software that will get us closer to an enterprise Single Sign-On (SSO) solution.

We are also working to fortify our environment in 2023 with additional software and tools that will round out our IT Security posture. In addition, we are working to ensure we are meeting or exceeding all requirements to be HiTrust compliant. HiTrust is a healthcare common security framework that is inclusive of NIST, ISO, PCI-DSS, and HIPAA compliance frameworks and is considered the “gold standard” of compliance and certification.

The IT department is looking forward to an exciting 2023, as we standardize on platforms and secure our environment to best-in-class levels.

Success Stories

Building and running a dental practice has been his life’s work, so when Mark Greenstein, DMD and DCA ally since 2022, was looking to transition his practice, Dr. Mark Greenstein & Associates of Clinton, MD, it was important to him to find the right partner. He wanted a DSO that would provide the support he needed so that he could focus on his patients. With DCA, he has found exactly that.