Computers in the Workplace Post#5

I choose to discuss the healthcare industry because I work for a hospital. My experience in healthcare started back when I was hired as a Desktop Technician. We deploy laptops and desktops to several departments and individuals. As we prepare computers out of the box, we install a standard image for all PCs. While all are standardized images, where people use them as generic with limited use, other than the applications they need to perform their duties, the physicians have more accessibilities to other applications and we allow more customization by the end-user. One practice we follow, across the board, is to encrypt the computers. We use the Bitlocker application, made by Microsoft, to encrypt the devices, and the Bitlocker description information is stored in Active Directory. The function of "Computer on Wheels" is to give the Nurses portable accessibility to computers to chart patient information when entering the patient rooms. These computers have limited access, which only a few applications for them to use, they also have a time-session after 5 minutes of use, if they sit idle it will log them out and forces them to enter their credentials upon returning to use them. The PCs in the Operating rooms and Emergency department have more access to many more features and the time-out is extended to 15 minutes of use. It is important for everyone to know security best practices when it comes to replying to emails or creating passwords that can be easily hacked. We randomly get emails from phishing and scammers and most of them come from the Security team to learn what end-users need more education on. The historic trends of computing are moving towards Virtual applications and Virtual machines. The forecast of computer hardware is to get rid of old Computer Workstations and move to smaller units that connect to servers that host all applications, like Office and such. We hire penetration companies, to find vulnerabilities in our systems.