From the Chairside: Dealing with and Resolving Computer Security Issues in the Dental Office

This is one of a series of posts related to practice enhancing technology that are provided by dentists who share their thoughts and experience about a piece of technology that changed their practice for the better.

Dr. Rob Joseph from Sydney, Nova Scotia, shared his experience about how he dealt with computer security issues in his newly purchased practice.

We invite interested dentists to tell us on camera about one technology (it can be a material, an instrument, a device, or a system) that has really made a difference to their clinical practice. Dentists can use four default draft questions for guidance (some of which could be combined):

• What is the “technology” you would like to talk about?
• Why did you incorporated it in your practice?
• How does it benefit your practice? and
• Would you have any advice to anybody considering incorporating it themselves?

If you would like to share your experience, you can email us your video to oasisdiscussions@cda-adc.ca or directly upload it to our oasis Discussions website at this link: https://oasisdiscussions.ca/upload-your-content/

Dr. Joseph’s Profile

Dr. Joseph is originally from Howie Centre, and a graduate of Riverview High (1994) and CBU (BSc. Biology 1998). He moved to Halifax to continue his education at Dalhousie (Ph.D. Immunology 2006, DDS 2009). He began his dental career in the Canadian forces and served in Ottawa ON and Gander NL, and has now returned home to Cape Breton to raise his young family.

Additional Resources

Information for Privacy legislation in Canada:

• PIPEDA – Breaches of security safeguards
• Privacy Legislation in Canada
• PIPEDA Privacy toolkit 
• Tool – who to contact regarding Privacy issues in Canada 
• Provincial Contacts for Privacy issues 
• Free Handbook of computer security
• Bitlocker Windows drive encryption 
• WiFi Security
• 10 Tips for network security
• 10 tips for protecting a small business network 

Basic Checklist

• Properly configured business class Firewall between network and internet Firewall scanned for vulnerabilities (SheildsUp) – ask a professional first
• Secure Password on Firewall
• Anti Virus current and updated on all office computers
• Staff have passwords for User Accounts, no administrator privileges
• Policy for Staff internet use, NO email, No web browsing
• Staff access to internet – content filtered/Firewall and/or OpenDNS Encrypted hard drives and removable storage with strong passwords Disabling of usb read/write except for authorized users
• Virus scanned and encrypted (where necessary) email
• Multiple generation encrypted backup, on and off site, held in Canada