Five Best Practices for Unified Communications

Background

To meet today’s increasing demands, businesses need to communicate and collaborate more efficiently. Communication needs to be timely and effective, reaching people where and when they want to be reached, at the office, at home or on the go. Collaboration needs to include a broad sweep of individuals, cross geographic and organizational boundaries and be integrated with business processes.

One way to address these needs is with Unified Communications (UC), which brings together the tools of voice, email, messaging and conferencing and integrates them with business applications such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM). UC can improve organizational efficiencies, while simultaneously empowering knowledge workers.

The efficiency gains come from the integration and optimization of communication silos, supported by enterprise-wide standards and shared services. Productivity gains are harder to measure, but there’s a clear intuitive benefit that could be realized by reducing human latency. It might be hard to quantify, but we’ve all experienced the frustration of “telephone tag.” With a UC platform, employees can see who’s available at a glance, before placing the call.

Characteristics of Successful UC Projects

Enterprises that have begun migrating toward UC have been experiencing some challenges. For UC to be effective, the entire network must be prepared to manage the applications. The more complex the network, the more difficult it is to roll out UC. Limited platform choices and inflexible pricing models are making choices more challenging for network managers. Return on Investment (ROI) for UC is also hard to provide in dollars and cents, as much of the value comes from improved communications among employees and customers. Early Adopters of UC indicate that successful UC programs share the following characteristics:

• They are often inspired by IT, but are always driven by clear business needs – it’s not just a matter of rolling out the infrastructure.

• They are well supported by existing architectures, and their complexity is acknowledged – programs succeed when they’re supported by detailed plans to manage both technical and organizational change.

• They focus on the smallest practical set of technology choices to minimize interoperability issues

Five Best Practices

Enterprises that are realizing value from their UC programs are succeeding because they’ve followed some basic, common-sense practices. If your organization is considering a move in this direction, here are five best practices to consider:

1. Define a Guiding Vision that will Lead Toward Increased ROI UC depends on network readiness, network and application convergence and integrated wired and wireless access. It also involves a blending of software and platform capabilities, leaving most enterprises with a multi-vendor solution. Managing the integration of disparate communications tools and dealing with the associated re-training programs also makes for a complex transition. Developing the right strategy requires a long-term view, as well as an understanding of the short-term challenges.

2. Include Sufficient Up-Front Planning.

A clear roadmap for a UC implementation can help businesses manage expectations and be sure that time frames are realized. It should recognize that UC is not a software-only concept, and include initiatives aimed at ensuring end-user acceptance. The plan should also consider whether some commodity services might need to be outsourced, so corporate knowledge resources can focus on strategic UC applications.

3. Clearly Align Business and Technical Requirements

Phased migration plans can maximize the value of existing investments in applications, messaging, voice and other supporting infrastructures. Vendor-agnostic product recommendations can help ensure that the design meets an organization’s specific requirements, and UC migration planning should also consider next generation service architectures, such as IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS).

4. Find the Right Champion for the UC Program

Some programs emerge from IT and seek to introduce new capabilities. Programs may also emerge from business units seeking to establish UC capabilities to support a new product, service or business initiative. Regardless of the champion, there must be a well-developed integration plan and a realistic level of funding.

5. Establish Cross-Functional

Teams to Help Manage the Implementation. These teams can help deal with the complexity of a “meta-technology” environment that includes many different parts, and can develop a single methodology for planning implementation and introduction. Cross-functional teams can also be invaluable when it comes to communicating the benefits across the organization, as well as to customers, partners and suppliers.

Seeing Benefits

Once a UC program is under way, reaping the benefits is ultimately up to the users. An enterprise can make all the right decisions and deliver on a well-thought-out strategy and still not benefit from UC. Employees must be willing to make changes in the way they conduct business and communicate. UC can increase the efficiency of virtual teams, while reducing travel time and expenses, and can

also eliminate some communication barriers, reduce cycle times and improve the quality of day-to-day communication. UC can support the re-engineering of business processes and accelerate process improvement, but only if process owners are willing to evolve. If not addressed, user resistance to change can be a deal-breaker for an otherwise well-planned UC program.

Despite the great promise of UC, it remains a challenging prospect. Standards are still emerging and different vendors offer different approaches. Independent advice can help companies select the strategies, architectures and deployment plans that make sense for them.

(Reference : AT&T)

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT - DNSSEC

Scenario

When Laura returns to campus after the holiday break, she is shocked to hear that she has been de-registered from classes due to nonpayment of tuition. She calls her parents, who confirm that they paid her bill online in early December. They tell her that when they went to the bursar’s website, the page looked a bit different and asked for information they had previously entered, but the browser displayed the padlock icon indicating a secure connection, so they paid the bill as usual. They assure her that the funds have already been transferred from their bank account. Laura heads over to the bursar’s office, only to find a crowd of students in the same boat. As they talk about their predicament, they discover that they all paid their tuition online and that they all use the same regional ISP.

Further investigation by the university’s IT staff confirms that the students fell victim to DNS cache poisoning—a kind of computer attack in which hackers insert bad data into an ISP’s name server cache, which, as a result, directs Internet traffic from an intended site (in this case, the bursar’s website) to another location. The hackers even purchased an SSL certificate so that the bogus site would have the padlock icon.

The university has to let several hundred students re-register without having yet paid tuition, and the students and their families spend months getting their banks to refund the money that was fraudulently transferred from their accounts.

In the future, as administrators of domains and websites implement DNSSEC, such attacks will be prevented. DNSSEC adds a set of security provisions to the way Internet traffic is routed through name servers, protecting users from the kind of attack Laura suffered. When DNSSEC is implemented, if a user’s computer is redirected to a bogus version of a website, software that manages web traffic will encounter security keys that should match but do not, indicating a problem. In this way, DNSSEC will plug a fundamental weakness of the Internet.

What is it?

Internet-connected devices are identified by IP addresses, though users typically only know web addresses—people can remember “example.edu,” for instance, more easily than “192.168.7.13.” The Domain Name System (DNS) uses a distributed network of name servers to translate text-based web addresses into IP addresses, directing Internet traffic to proper servers. Though invisible to end users, DNS is a basic element of how the Internet functions.

DNS was built without security, however, leaving Internet traffic exposed to forged DNS data, which, among other things, allows the spoofing of addresses to redirect traffic to malicious websites. DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) adds security provisions to DNS so that computers can verify that they have been directed to proper servers. DNSSEC authenticates lookups of DNS data (including the mapping of website names to IP addresses) for DNSSEC-enabled domains so that outgoing Internet traffic (including e-mail) is always sent to the correct servers, without the risk of being misdirected to fraudulent sites.

Who’s doing it?

VeriSign administers the “root,” which supports all top-level domains (TLDs) (.com, .net, .info, and so forth), and is expected to implement DNSSEC for the root (“sign the root”) in 2010. Once that happens, DNSSEC traffic can be validated at its highest level—the root. Several nations—including Sweden (.se domain), Brazil (.br), Bulgaria (.bg), and the Czech Republic (.cz)—have implemented the technology for their country-code domains, and the Public Interest Registry has enabled DNSSEC validation for the .org domain. As part of its compliance with the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002, which requires increased security for the nation’s cyberinfrastructure, the U.S. federal government has implemented DNSSEC for the .gov domain. Until the root is signed, these domains will use a surrogate authority to validate their DNSSEC-enabled web traffic, but all TLDs will eventually use DNSSEC. EDUCAUSE is working with VeriSign to implement DNSSEC for the .edu domain, also in 2010, and this effort is expected to provide guidance about best practices to smooth the transitions of the much-larger .com and .net domains in 2010 and 2011.

How does it work?

As data packets travel over the Internet, DNS provides the “maps” that correlate web addresses with IP addresses and route traffic to proper destinations. Because DNS does not provide a mechanism to authenticate the data in name servers, forged or corrupt data in a name server can direct traffic to the wrong server—a weakness that malicious parties use to their advantage. DNSSEC adds digital signatures that ensure the accuracy of lookup data, guaranteeing that computers can connect to legitimate servers.

With DNSSEC, a series of encryption keys are handed off and authenticated—the second-level domain (SLD) key (from example. edu) is authenticated by the TLD (.edu), and the TLD key is authenticated by the root. In this way, when an SLD, its parent TLD, and the root are all signed, a chain of trust is created. (Holders of SLDs can implement DNSSEC before their TLD or the root is signed, creating so-called “islands of trust” that rely on intermediate measures to validate their encryption keys.) If the encryption keys don’t match, DNSSEC will fail, but because the system is backwards-compatible, the transaction will simply follow standard DNS protocols.

The value of the system will come when the root, the TLDs, and SLDs are signed, allowing DNSSEC to be used for all Internet traffic. At that point, when DNSSEC fails, users will not be routed to bogus servers, and they might also be notified that nonmatching DNSSEC keys prevented their transaction from going through.

Why is it significant?

Hackers continue to exploit the security weakness of DNS to their advantage. By caching address information, name servers don’t have to look up the IP address every time a frequently visited site is accessed, and this speeds up the experience for end users. If hackers are able to insert a bogus IP address into a cache, however, all users of that name server will be directed to the wrong site (until the cache expires and is refreshed). Corrupting the operation of DNS in this way can lead to many kinds of fraud and other malicious activity. By plugging some of the largest security holes in the Internet, DNSSEC has the potential to significantly expand the trustworthiness—and thus the usefulness—of the Internet as a whole.

What are the downsides?

Fully implementing DNSSEC will require an enormous amount of work across every quarter of the Internet—signing the root and the TLDs is simply the tip of the iceberg. Participation is voluntary at this time, and the benefit that DNSSEC ultimately provides will be a reflection of the willingness of domain holders to do that work—that is, the value of DNSSEC will be in direct proportion to the number of sites that implement it. Even after the root and the TLDs are signed, the advantage of DNSSEC will be qualified by uneven rates of adoption. Adding encryption keys to Internet lookups introduces complex logistical problems of managing those keys, such as how to periodically update keys without breaking the way name servers (and their caches) work, and how to accommodate the differing keys and protocols of different TLDs. Name server software is still evolving to support DNSSEC; many organizations will need to update their DNS software, and, in some cases, hardware upgrades will also be required. In addition, DNSSEC might degrade the speed of Internet lookups, resulting in a slower experience for end users. On top of the technical and resource-based challenges are policy issues that will need to be resolved at an international level. The effort to implement DNSSEC for the root has renewed a longstanding debate about where “control of the Internet” resides.

Where is it going?

Having the root and TLDs signed will provide some incentive for domain holders to implement DNSSEC because the chain of trust can be established, but until a critical mass of domains incorporate the technology, the benefits might not seem to justify the effort. Administrators of most TLDs are expected to develop resources to help ease the implementation of DNSSEC for domain holders, but many of the thorniest technical issues—about not only the transition to but also the maintenance of DNSSEC in practice—still need to be sorted out. Presumably, as domains begin implementing DNSSEC in large numbers, momentum will grow and sustain the transition, but it remains to be seen how long the process might take or at what point a mandate to implement DNSSEC will be required for full adoption.

What are the implications for higher education?

The risks posed by DNS and the benefits of implementing DNSSEC have special significance for higher education. Colleges and universities are expected to be “good Internet citizens” and to lead by example in efforts to improve the public good. Because users tend to trust certain domains, including the .edu domain, more than others, expectations for the reliability of college and university websites are high. To the extent that institutions of higher education depend on their reputations, DNSSEC is an avenue to avoid some of the kinds of incidents that can damage a university’s stature.

In more tangible terms, higher education institutions store enormous amounts of sensitive information (including personal and financial information for students and others, medical information, and research data), and they maintain valuable online assets to which access must be effectively restricted. DNS attacks result in stolen passwords, disrupted e-mail (which often is the channel for official communications), exposure to malware, and other problems. DNSSEC can be an important part of a broad-based cybersecurity strategy.

(Reference : http://www.educause.edu)

Global IP Addresses

Have you ever wondered who controls the allocation of IP space? Globally routable IP addresses are assigned and distributed by Regional Internet Registrars (RIRs) to ISPs. The ISP then allocates smaller IP blocks to their clients as required.

Virtually all Internet users obtain their IP addresses from an ISP The 4 billion available IP addresses are administered by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA, http://www.iana.org). IANA has divided this space into large subnets, usually /8 subnets with 16 million addresses each. These subnets are delegated to one of the five regional Internet registries (RIRs), which are given authority over large geographic areas.

The five RIRs are:

• African Network Information Centre (AfriNIC, http://www.afrinic.net/)
• Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC, http://www.apnic.net/)
• American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN, http://www.arin.net/)
• Regional Latin-American and Caribbean IP Address Registry (LACNIC, http://www.lacnic.net/)
• Réseaux IP Européens (RIPE NCC, http://www.ripe.net/)

Your ISP will assign globally routable IP address space to you from the pool allocated to it by your RIR. The registry system assures that IP addresses are not reused in any part of the network anywhere in the world. Once IP address assignments have been agreed upon, it is possible to pass packets between networks and participate in the global Internet. The process

of moving packets between networks is called routing.

(Reference: http://wndw.net)

Global Information Assurance Certification (GIAC) - The Only Hands-On Information Security Certification

In the information security industry, there are a multitude of information security certifications, but only GIAC (Global Information Assurance Certification) builds the true hands-on skills that go beyond theory and tests on the pragmatics of security administration, management, audit, and software security.

GIAC offers more than 20 specialized information security certifications that correspond to specific job duties. The family of GIAC certifications target job-based skill sets rather than taking a one-size fits all approach. The GIAC certification process validates the specific skills of security professionals and developers with standards established on the highest benchmarks in the industry.

(Reference: http://www.giac.org)

Perlaksanaan Pensijilan MS ISO/IEC 27001:2007 Dalam Sektor Awam - Bila Sistem ICT di UiTM akan mempunyai pensijilan MS ISO/IEC 27001:2007?

Surat Pekeliling MAMPU bertarikh 24 November 2010 mewajibkan semua agensi kerajaan termasuk semua universiti di Malaysia melaksanakan pensijilan MS ISO/IEC 27001:2007 Pengurusan Sistem Keselamatan Maklumat (Information Security Management System - ISMS) di agensi masing-masing.

Justeru di UiTM, dalam melaksanakan keputusan ini, Pusat Sistem Maklumat Bersepadu (PSMB) selaku pusat yang bertanggungjawab terhadap ICT di UiTM sewajarnya mengambil tindakan proaktif seperti:-

a) Mengatur rancangan pematuhan pensijilan ISMS sebagaimana yang telah ditetapkan oleh Jemaah Menteri dan memberi maklum balas mengikut keperluan dari masa ke masa;

b) Mengenal pasti skop pelaksanaan dan pensijilan ISMS berdasarkan perkhidmatan kritikal agensi; dan

c) Merujuk kepada dokumen-dokumen berikut sebagai panduan pelaksanaan:

i) Malaysian Standard (MS ISO/IEC 27001:2007 Information technology - Security techniques - Information Security Management Systems – Requirement);

ii) International Standard (ISO/IEC 27003:2009 Information technology - Security techniques - Information Security Management System Implementation Guidance); dan

iii) International Standard (ISO/IEC 27004: 2009 Information Technology-Security Techniques - Information Security Management Measurement).

Mesyuarat Jemaah Menteri pada 24 Februari 2010 telah mengambil maklum bahawa tahap keselamatan maklumat kritikal negara perlu memenuhi standard antarabangsa yang boleh dicapai melalui pelaksanaan pensijilan MS ISO/IEC 27001:2007 Pengurusan Sistem Keselamatan Maklumat.

Mesyuarat Jemaah Menteri juga telah bersetuju Sektor Awam yang merupakan sebahagian dari Prasarana Maklumat Kritikal Negara (Critical National Information Infrastructure – CNII) perlu mendapatkan pensijilan MS ISO/IEC 27001:2007 Pengurusan Sistem Keselamatan Maklumat dalam tempoh 3 tahun. Sebarang usaha untuk mendapatkan pensijilan tersebut dalam tempoh lebih awal adalah digalakkan.

Diharapkan pihak yang terbabit dgn ICT di UiTM dapat merealiasasikan MS ISO/IEC 27001:2007 ini selewat-lewatnya pada pertengahan Jun 2011.

(Rujukan : Web Site MAMPU)

Programming Ruby - The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide

Man is driven to create; I know I really love to create things. And while I'm not good at painting, drawing, or music, I can write software. Shortly after I was introduced to computers, I became interested in programming languages. I believed that an ideal programming language must be attainable, and I wanted to be the designer of it.

Later, after gaining some experience, I realized that this kind of ideal, all-purpose language might be more difficult than I had thought. But I was still hoping to design a language that would work for most of the jobs I did everyday. That was my dream as a student. Years later I talked with colleagues about scripting languages, about their power and possibility. As an object-oriented fan for more than fifteen years, it seemed to me that OO programming was very suitable for scripting too.

I did some research on the 'net for a while, but the candidates I found, Perl and Python, were not exactly what I was looking for. I wanted a language more powerful than Perl, and more object-oriented than Python. Then, I remembered my old dream, and decided to design my own language. At first I was just toying around with it at work. But gradually it grew to be a tool good enough to replace Perl. I named it Ruby--after the precious red stone---and released it to the public in 1995.

Since then a lot of people have become interested in Ruby. Believe it or not, Ruby is actually more popular than Python in Japan right now. I hope that eventually it will be just as well received all over the world. I believe that the purpose of life is, at least in part, to be happy. Based on this belief, Ruby is designed to make programming not only easy, but also fun. It allows you to concentrate on the creative side of programming, with less stress. If you don't believe me, read this book and try Ruby.

I'm sure you'll find out for yourself. I'm very thankful to the people who have joined the Ruby community; they have helped me a lot. I almost feel like Ruby is one of my children, but in fact, it is the result of the combined efforts of many people. Without their help, Ruby could never have become what it is. I am especially thankful to the authors of this book, Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt. Ruby has never been a well-documented language. Because I have always preferred writing programs over writing documents, the Ruby manuals tend to be less thorough than they should be.

You had to read the source to know the exact behavior of the language. But now Dave and Andy have done the work for you. They became interested in a lesser-known language from the Far East. They researched it, read thousands of lines of source code, wrote uncountable test scripts and e-mails, clarified the ambiguous behavior of the language, found bugs (and even fixed some of them), and finally compiled this great book. Ruby is certainly well documented now! Their work on this book has not been trivial. While they were writing it, I was modifying the language itself. But we worked together on the updates, and this book is as accurate as possible. It is my hope that both Ruby and this book will serve to make your programming easy and enjoyable. Have fun!

Yukihiro Matsumoto, a.k.a. ``Matz''

Japan, October 2000

(Reference : http://www.ruby-doc.org)

Kemana Halatuju ICT UiTM Menempuh Alaf Digital Baru 2010?

Pada Jun 2010, IEEE telah meluluskan standard 802.3ba (40/100 Gigabit Ethernet standards) untuk teknologi ethernet berkelajuan tinggi, ia membolehkan data dihantar melalui copper, fiber optic (single mode) dan fiber optic (multi mode) pada kadar kelajuan 40Gbit/s dan 100Gbit/s. Pada hari ini UiTM masih menggunakan IEEE Std 802.3ae-2002(10GE) yang diluluskan oleh IEEE pada tahun 2002. Dalam masa yang sama UiTM masih lagi mengamalkan pengurusan sistem telekomunikasi secara tradisional dimana sistem telefon diuruselia oleh Unit Telekomunikasi, Pejabat Pengurusan Fasiliti manakala sistem rangkaian data (network) diuruselia oleh Unit Rangkaian, Pusat Sistem Maklumat Bersepadu menyebabkan sistem telefon (PABX) terpisah dengan sistem data (rangkaian).

Sistem data (rangkaian) semua kampus cawangan UiTM diseluruh negara disambung diantara satu sama lain ke Kampus Induk Shah Alam menggunakan IPVPN Over Metro-Ethernet yang disewa daripada Syarikat Telekom Malaysia Berhad (STMB). Dalam masa yang sama, sistem telefon (PABX) semua kampus UiTM diseluruh negara dihubungkan diantara satu sama lain melalui public switched telephone network (PSTN), kesan UiTM mengurus sistem ICT cara tradisional menyebabkan UiTM tidak dapat menikmati kemudahan unified communication yang telah diumumkan oleh Unified Communications Interoperability Forum (UCIF) pada Mei 2010.

Tahun 2010 menuntut UiTM untuk menilai semula sistem pengurusan dan amalan ICT sediada supaya ia diurus selaras dengan perkembangan teknologi semasa masa kini supaya teknologi ICT digunapakai sepenuhnya untuk menambahbaik sistem penyampaian di UiTM. UiTM sewajarnya menggunakan menggunakan teknologi unified communication kerana ia terbukti membawa banyak manfaat kepada organisasi yang menggunakannya diseluruh dunia. Perubahan yang drastik perlu dilakukan oleh pengurusan universiti supaya perlaksanaan dan penggunaan teknologi unified communication dapat dilaksanakan dengan mengabungkan unit-unit yang terlibat dengan pengurusan telefon dan data diletakan dibawah satu pengurusan.

Tasks and Responsibilities for Project Managers

• Get all key players on the project team.
• Manage task interfaces.
• Assure clear identification of task completion.
• Assure communication of task completion.
• Manage responsibility interfaces.
• Question blurry responsibilities.
• Clarify delegation levels.
• Balance the needs of project, client, organization.
• Identify stakeholders and their definition of project success.
• Balance project objectives with other objectives.
• Act as a catalyst, and when necessary, a devil’s advocate.
• Promote effective communication and wide participation in decision making.
• Manage conflicts. Conflict and aggressiveness are necessary elements in an adhocracy.
• Management’s job is to channel them toward productive ends.
• Bring conflicts to an early resolution. Do not sweep them under the rug. They won’t go away.

About Project and Project Management

A Project Is....

• A group of tasks, performed in a definable time period, in order to meet a specific set of objectives.
• It is likely to be a one-time program.
• It has a life cycle, with a specific start and end.
• It has a work scope that can be categorized into definable tasks.
• It has a budget.
• It is likely to require the use of multiple resources. Many of these resources may be scarce and may have to be shared with others.
• It may require the establishment of a special organization, or the crossing of traditional organizational boundaries

Major components of project consists of

• Work of scope.
• Time.
• Resources.
• Costs.
• Quality.
• Communication.
• Risk.
• Contracts and Procurement.

Fundamentals Concepts of Excellence

The Fundamental Concepts of Excellence are the underlying principles of the EFQM Excellence. Model which are the essential foundation of achieving sustainable excellence for any organisations.

Achieving Balanced Results
Excellent organisations meet their Mission and progress towards their Vision through planning and achieving a balanced set of results that meet both the short and long term needs of their stakeholders and, where relevant, exceed them.

Adding Value for Customers
Excellent organisations know that customers are their primary reason for being and strive to innovate and create value for them by understanding and anticipating their needs and expectations.

Leading with Vision, Inspiration & Integrity
Excellent organisations have leaders who shape the future and make it happen, acting as role models for its Values and ethics.

Managing by Processes
Excellent organisations are managed through structured and strategically aligned processes using fact-based decision making to create balanced and sustained results.

Succeeding through People
Excellent organisations value their people and create a culture of empowerment for the balanced achievement of organisational and personal goals.

Nurturing Creativity & Innovation
Excellent organisations generate increased value and levels of performance through continual and systematic innovation by harnessing the creativity of their stakeholders.

Building Partnerships
Excellent organisations seek, develop and maintain trusting relationships with various partners to ensure mutual success. These partnerships may be formed with customers, society, key suppliers, educational bodies or Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO).

Taking Responsibility for a Sustainable Future
Excellent organisations embed within their culture an ethical mindset, clear Values and the highest standards of organisational behaviour, all of which enable them to strive for economic, social and ecological sustainability.

(Resouces : http://www.efqm.org)

References to Various Methodologies for ICT Project Management

1. Association for Project Management
2. Malcolm Baldrige Model
3. BS 5750 - British Standards Institute.
4. EFQM (European Foundation for Quality Management)
5. ISO 9002 (International Standards Institute)
6. ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library)
7. PMBOK (Project Management Institute)
8. AIPM(The Australia Institute of Project Management)
9. IPMA(The International Project Management Association)
10. SSADM (Structured Systems Analysis and Design Method)
11. PRINCE2

Bytes, Megabytes, and Gigabytes

Hard disk space and random access memory (RAM) are measured in megabytes and gigabytes. First, you need to understand the basic unit in this numbering scheme—the bit. A bit is the basic unit of information in the binary numbering system, representing either 0 (for off) or 1 (for on). Computers read binary numbers, or strings of 0s and 1s.

Bits are grouped to form larger storage units, the most common of which is a byte. Bytes are made up of 7 and 8 bits, which, collectively, are also known as an octet. The word byte is a contraction of BinarY digiT Eight. The most important thing to remember here is that a byte usually holds one character—such as a number, letter, or symbol.

Bytes represent very small amounts of storage, so they are usually grouped in larger quantities. A kilobyte (KB) contains 1,024 bytes. You’ll see your file sizes in the Windows Explorer, for example, listed in kilobytes if the files are small. The prefix kilo indicates 1,000 in the metric system.

A megabyte (MB) contains 1,048,576 bytes. The prefix mega represents 1 million in the metric system and is used for file size, as well as for computer memory and hard disk capacity. A gigabyte (GB) contains 1,073,741,824 bytes. The prefix giga represents 1 billion in the metric system. You generally see gigabytes when talking about hard disk capacity. Large gigabyte hard drives now are the norm; you can purchase 40GB drives with no problem in a computer these days.

The appearance of the PC (personal computer)

Ted Hoff at Intel invented the microprocessor in 1971. At the same time, IBM invented the floppy disk as a convenient, small and cheap means of storing computer data. Now, using a single processor chip, complemented by a few memory chips and input/output devices, it was possible to create a working micro-computer. The first commercially available computer kit (the MITS Altair) duly appeared in 1975, and the Commodore PET computer was the hit of 1977. A period of intense further development of the microprocessor chip took place at Intel. The 8086 chip was released in 1979 and the 8088 in 1980.

Based on the Intel 8088 microprocessor, the IBM PC (personal computer) appeared in August 1981 . This set the standard for PCs as we know them today. The IBM PC incorporated the DOS (disk operating system) software developed by the Micro-Soft company (later renamed Microsoft) which had been set up by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975. By 1983, a new version of the IBM PC, the IBM PC XT, included a hard disk for storage of data.

Apple Computer, founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976, introduced the Macintosh computer in 1984. It revolutionised personal computing with the graphical user interface (GUI), the use of a mouse to ‘point and click’ and the opening of different ‘windows’ for different tasks. Microsoft quickly reacted by introducing a new operating system software, Microsoft Windows, in 1985. The ‘look and feel’ of Microsoft Windows were so similar to the Macintosh operating system that it led Apple Computer to file a lawsuit.

The role of UNIX in the development of the Internet

In 1969, the UNIX computer operating system was developed by Ken Thompson of AT&T Bell Laboratories. It has turned out to be one of the most powerful and widely accepted computer operating systems for computer and telephone exchange systems requiring multitasking and multi-user capabilities.

Standard UNIX commands allow for access to computer files, programs, storage and other resources. Encouraged by the hardware volumes purchased by AT&T (American Telegraph and Telephone company), UNIX was quickly adopted by many computer manufacturers as their standard operating system, so that computer programs and other applications written for UNIX could easily be ported (i.e., moved with only very few changes) from one computer system to another.

Most importantly for the development of the Internet, one of the participants in the ARPANET, the University of California in Berkeley, at the request of DARPA, wrote an extension to UNIX to incorporate the newly developed TCP/IP protocols. This version of UNIX was called UNIX 4.2BSD(Berkeley System Distribution). It was immediately used in the ARPANET and was released to the public domain in 1983. It opened the door for rapid further development of applications for file transfer between computers and for a more-widely standardised form of email. The embedding of TCP/IP within UNIX also made UNIX servers the natural choice of hardware for web servers, which would appear later.

Understanding Protocal and Network Standards

A standard is an agreed-upon definition of a protocol. In the early days of computer networking, each computer manufacturer developed its own networking protocols. As a result, you weren’t able to easily mix equipment from different manufacturers on a single network. Then along came standards to save the day.

Standards are industry-wide protocol definitions that are not tied to a particular manufacturer. With standard protocols, you can mix and match equipment from different vendors. As long as the equipment implements the standard protocols, it should be able to coexist on the same network. Many organizations are involved in setting standards for networking. The five most important organizations are:-

1. American National Standards Institute (ANSI): The official standards organization in the United States. ANSI is pronounced An-See. (www.ansi.org)
2. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE): An international organization that publishes several key networking standards; in particular, the official standard for the Ethernet networking system (known officially as IEEE 802.3). IEEE is pronounced Eye-triple-E. (www.ieee.org)
3. International Organization for Standardization (ISO): A federation of more than 100 standards organizations from throughout the world. If I had studied French in high school, I’d probably understand why the acronym for International Organization for Standardization is ISO, and not IOS. (www.iso.org)
4. Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF): The organization responsible for the protocols that drive the Internet. (www.ietf.org)
5. World Wide Web Consortium (W3C): An international organization that handles the development of standards for the World Wide Web. (www.w3c.org)

KEUTAMAAN SOLAT DALAM KEHIDUPAN - Oleh: Hafiz Firdaus Abdullah

Tuntutan sembahyang dalam Islam mempunyai banyak faedah dan manfaat kepada umat yang menunaikannya samada di dunia mahupun di akhirat. Keutamaannya dalam suasana kehidupan harian jelas tertera dalam ayat-ayat Allah (S.W.T) dan berikut ini disalinkan beberapa darinya agar dapat dijadikan iktibar dan pelajaran.

1. SEMBAHYANG MENJANJIKAN KETENANGAN HIDUP

Iman, amal, sembahyang dan zakat adalah antara 4 perkara yang jikalau disempurnakan tuntutannya oleh seorang muslim akan memberikannya ketenangan serta kemudahan suasana kehidupan. Firman Allah:-

“Sesungguhnya orang-orang yang beriman, mengerjakan amal saleh, mendirikan sembahyang dan menunaikan zakat, mereka mendapat pahala di sisi Tuhannya. Tidak ada kekhawatiran terhadap mereka dan tidak (pula) mereka bersedih hati” - Surah Al-Baqarah (2):277

2. SEMBAHYANG MENJANJIKAN KEJAYAAN HIDUP

Sembahyang yang didirikan dengan penuh kesempurnaan dan kekhusyu’kan akan mengarah seseorang itu kepada kejayaan yang hakiki, iaitu kejayaan yang diredhai Allah (S.W.T). Dia menerangkan hakikat ini dengan firman Nya:-

“Sesungguhnya berjayalah orang-orang yang beriman. Iaitu mereka yang khusyu’ dalam sembahyangnya” - Surah Al-Mu’minun (23):1-2

3. SEMBAHYANG MENGUATKAN JIWA DAN PENDIRIAN

Melatih diri dengan tetap bersembahyang lima kali sehari dapat membina sebuah jiwa yang kuat lagi berprinsip, apabila susah ia tetap dalam ketenangan dan apabila ia senang ia tetap juga dalam ketenangan, tidak resah, tidak runsing, tidak bongkak dan tidak sombong. Begitulah sifat yang dimiliki oleh orang yang tetap menjaga sembahyangnya, sebagaimana terang Allah dalam ayat berikut:-

“Sesungguhnya manusia itu dijadikan berta’biat resah gelisah (lagi bakhil kedekut). Apabila ia ditimpa kesusahan, ia sangat resah gelisah. Dan apabila ia beroleh kesenangan, ia sangat bakhil kedekut, kecuali orangorang yang mengerjakan sembahyang. Iaitu mereka yang tetap mengerjakan sembahyang” - Surah Al-Maarij (70):19-23

4. SEMBAHYANG MENJEMPUT RAHMAT ALLAH

Orang yang bersembahyang dan menjemput agar orangorang lain turut serta, mereka dijanjikan Allah (S.W.T) akan Rahmat Nya dan tiadalah dapat tertulis apakah itu Rahmat Allah kerana keluasannya yang amat tidak terhingga. Hayatilah firman Allah berikut ini:

“Dan orang-orang yang beriman, lelaki dan perempuan, sebahagian mereka (adalah) menjadi penolong bagi sebahagian yang lain. Mereka menyuruh (mengerjakan) yang ma’ruf, mencegah dari yang mungkar, mendirikan sembahyang, menunaikan zakat dan mereka ta’at kepada Allah dan Rasul Nya. Mereka itu akan diberi Rahmat oleh Allah; sesungguhnya Allah Maha Perkasa lagi Maha Bijaksana” - Surah At-Taubah (9):71

5. SEMBAHYANG MENGHINDARKAN DARI PERBUATAN KEJI DAN MUNGKAR.

Orang yang melazimkan dirinya selalu bersembahyang akan terhindar dari perbuatan yang jahat lagi keji. Ada dua sebab dia berjaya sedemikian, pertama ialah kerana pemiliharaan Allah (S.W.T) kepada hamba Nya itu kerana sememangnya Rahmat Allah bersama orang yang bersembahyang; kedua ialah kesedaran orang yang bersembahyang itu sendiri, sudah tentu dia enggan mencemari amal ibadah dirinya dengan kotoran kemaksiatan.

Jikalau kemaksiatan dan amal sembahyang masih bercampur aduk bagi seseorang itu maka perlu diperiksa sembahyangnya itu samaada ia bertepatan dengan kaedah yang diajar oleh Nabi (s.a.w) atau perlu juga diperiksa dirinya sendiri kerana mungkin sahaja kemaksiatan itu sengaja dikehendaki oleh dirinya sendiri. Keberhasilan sembahyang menghindar kejahatan dinyatakan oleh Allah (S.W.T) dalam firman Nya:-

“Dan dirikanlah sembahyang (dengan tekun, sesungguhnya sembahyang itu mencegah dari perbuatan yang keji dan mungkar” - Surah Al-Ankabuut (29):45

6. SEMBAHYANG MENJANJIKAN DOA DIKABUL OLEH ALLAH (S.W.T)

Sembahyang dan doa kepada Allah amat kuat berhubungkait, memberikan gambaran bahawa antara dua itu tidak boleh dipisahkan. Seseorang yang tetap bersembahyang, doanya mudah dan cepat dijawab oleh Allah (S.W.T) asal sahaja disertai kesabaran, manakala orang yang meremehkan sembahyang, Allah akan meremehkan doanya.

Kajilah firman Allah dalam ayat berikut:-

“Dan mintalah pertolongan (kepada Allah) dengan jalan sabar dan mengerjakan sembahyang”

Allah mengulangi firman Nya dalam sepotong ayat yang lain:-

“Wahai sekalian orang-orang yang beriman. Mintalah pertolongan dengan bersabar dan dengan (mengerjakan) sembahyang; kerana sesungguhnya Allah menyertai (menolong) orang-orang yang sabar”

7. SEMBAHYANG DAN URUSAN DUNIA SALING BERGANDINGAN

Amalan sembahyang fardhu lima kali sehari tidaklah ia bertujuan menghalang seseorang itu dari meneruskan kerja dan usaha duniawinya tetapi bermaksud sebagai satu gandingan (complement) antara satu sama lain bagi mencapai kejayaan yang sebenar-benarnya.

Allah (S.W.T) hanya mewajibkan kita menunaikan kewajipan sembahyang lima kali sehari dalam waktuwaktunya yang tertentu sahaja manakala lebih masa yang ada diharuskan bagi kita mencari rezeki di dunia.

Perhatikanlah hal ini adalah surah berikut di mana Allah hanya mewajibkan kita mendatangi sembahyang apabila masuk waktunya (dalam kes ini ialah sembahyang Jumaat) dan tidak pula Dia menghalang kita daripada apa-apa urusan lain sebelum atau selepas waktu sembahyang itu. FirmanNya:-

“Wahai orang-orang yang beriman, apabila diserukan azan (bang) untuk mengerjakan sembahyang pada hari Jumaat, maka segeralah kamu pergi (ke masjid) untuk mengingati Allah (dengan mengerjakan sembahyang Jumaat) dan tinggalkanlah berjual beli (pada saat itu); yang demikian adalah baik bagi kamu jika kamu mengetahui (hakikat yang sebenarnya). Kemudian setelah selesai sembahyang maka bertebaranlah kamu di muka bumi (untuk menjalankan urusan masing-masing), dan carilah apa yang kamu hajati dari limpah kurnia Allah, serta ingatlah akan Allah banyak-banyak (dalam segala keadaan) supaya kamu berjaya (di dunia dan di akhirat)”

Ayat ini adalah juga sebagai dalil bahawa Islam bukanlah agama akhirat sahaja atau agama yang membenci dunia tetapi ia adalah agama yang menekankan kehidupan dunia dan akhirat, rohani dan jasmani. Malah bahagian kedua ayat tersebut (ayat10) mengandungi suruhan yang hampir berupa perintah agar dicari dan diusahakan urusan dunia asalkan tidak lalai sehingga melupakan Allah. Orang yang dapat mengerti hakikat ini, iaitu prinsip mengimbangkan antara usaha duniawi dan ibadah ukhrawi lalu diterjemahkan kepada amal kehidupan hariannya pasti memperoleh limpah kurnia dan lebihan rezeki dari Allah yang Maha Kaya. Janji Allah kepada orang sebegini:-

“(Ibadat itu dikerjakan oleh) orang-orang yang kuat imannya yang tidak dilalaikan oleh perniagaan atau jualbeli daripada menyebut serta mengingati Allah, dan mendirikan sembahyang serta memberi zakat; mereka takutkan hari (kiamat) yang padanya berbalik-balik hati (Mereka mengerjakan semuanya itu) supaya Allah membalas mereka dengan sebaik-baik balasan bagi apa yang mereka kerjakan, dan menambahi mereka lagi dari limpah kurnia Nya; sememangnya Allah memberi rezeki kepada sesiapa yang dikehendaki Nya dengan tidak terhitung”.

Perimbangan yang adil antara urusan duniawi dan urusan ukhrawi adalah ajaran asas agama Islam jikalau ia dihayati secara keseluruhannya. Mengutamakan yang satu lalu mengenepikan yang lain hanya akan membawa kepada sesuatu yang lain dari tujuan syari’at yang sekian lengkap lagi sempurna ini. Justeru itulah kita dapati para sahabat Nabi (s.a.w) mengimbangi antara dunia dan akhirat dengan kata-kata hikmah:-

“Kerjakanlah urusan dunia kamu seolah-olah kamu akan hidup selama-lamanya dan kerjakanlah urusan akhirat kamu seolah-olah kamu akan mati pada esok harinya”

Malah bagi orang yang melalaikan sembahyang dan hanya terlalu sibuk dengan urusan duniawinya dia tidak boleh diamanahkan dengan apa-apa urusan orang Islam kerana diragui samada dia akan memegang amanah itu dengan sebenar-benarnya berprinsipkan Islam. Khalifah Islam kedua, Umar al-Khattab (r.a) dalam salah satu surat perlembagaannya kepada para gabenor kerajaan menulis:-

“Yang paling utama dalam urusan kamu dalam perkiraan aku ialah perlaksanaan sembahyang. Barangsiapa menjaganya dan memeliharanya dengan penuh keprihatinan maka dia sebenarnya telah menjaga deen agamanya; dan barangsiapa yang melalaikannya sudah pasti dia (juga) akan melalaikan urusanurusannya yang lain”11

Berpijak dari pesanan Umar al-Khattab ini, telah berkata Imam Ibnu Taimiyyah:

“Pemilik perusahaan yang benar-benar muslim tidak boleh mengambil pekerja dari kalangan orang yang meninggalkan sembahyang sebab memperkerjakan orang seperti itu bererti membantunya menggunakan rezeki yang diberikan Allah kepadanya untuk menambah-nambah dalam perbuatan yang derhaka. Manusia yang tidak mengenal kewajipan terhadap Allah yang telah mencipta dirinya sudah tentu juga tidak akan mengenal kewajipan terhadap sesama manusia bahkan akan meremehkannya sahaja”12 dan pandangan.

Simbols and Numbers

& (Ampersand) - The ampersand is used to indicate special characters in HTML (HypertextMarkup Language) documents—that is, documents for the World Wide Web. For example, & specifies the ampersand character (&); ö specifies a lowercase o with an umlaut, or dieresis, mark (ö).

< >(Angle Brackets) -Angle brackets are used in pairs to surround markup tags in HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) documents for the World Wide Web. For example,

indicates a paragraph break; and indicate the start and end of a section that is to be displayed in boldface.

* (Asterisk) - In several operating systems, the asterisk serves as a wildcard character: to represent one or more characters, such as in a file name or extension. For example, a* matches act, actor, and and, but not band. In pattern matching involving regular expressions, the asterisk matches the occurrences of the single character immediately preceding it. For example, ba*th matches bth, bath, and baaaaath, but not bbath. In e-mail and in other contexts that use plain text, asterisks are sometimes used around words or phrases to indicate emphasis. For example, “I *really* want to emphasize the second word in this sentence.”

10BaseX - The designations 10Base2, 10Base5, 10BaseF, and 10BaseT refer to various types of baseband Ethernet networks.

10BaseT - The 10BaseT is a baseband 802.3-based Ethernet network that uses unshielded twisted-pair (UTP) cable and a star topology. This version can operate at up to 10 Mbps. It is also known as twisted-pair Ethernet or UTP Ethernet.

110-Type Punch-Down Block -A device for terminating wires, with the possibility of connecting input and output wires. This type of punch-down block has generally replaced the older 66-type blocks originally used by the telephone company.

SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis is a common method for assessing where we are?. Here’s a closer look at the SWOT analysis

elements:

Strengths. What internal capabilities or assets give the organization a competitive advantage? In what ways does the organization serve its key internal and external stakeholders well?

Weaknesses. What internal capabilities or assets is the organization relatively ineffective or inefficient at performing or possessing, or so limited in capacity as to put it at a competitive disadvantage? In what ways does the organization fall short in serving key internal and external
stakeholders?

Opportunities. What conditions or possible future conditions in the external environment might give the organization a competitive advantage and enhance achievement of its vision if taken advantage of?

Threats. What conditions or possible future conditions in the external environment might put the organization at a competitive disadvantage and inhibit achievement of its vision if steps are not taken to minimize their impact?

Installing Twisted-Pair Cable - Installation guidelines

The hardest part about installing network cable is the physical task of pulling the cable through ceilings, walls, and floors. This job is just tricky enough that I recommend that you don’t attempt it yourself except for small offices. For large jobs, hire a professional cable installer. You may even want to hire a professional for small jobs if the ceiling and wall spaces are difficult to access. Here are some general pointers to keep in mind if you decide to install cable yourself:-

1. When running cable, avoid sources of interference, such as fluorescent lights, big motors, X-ray machines, and so on. The most common source of interference for cables that are run behind fake ceiling panels are fluorescent lights; be sure to give light fixtures a wide berth as you run your cable. Three feet should do it.
2. The maximum allowable cable length between the hub and the computer is 100 meters (about 328 feet).
3. When you run cable above suspended ceiling panels, use cable ties, hooks, or clamps to secure the cable to the actual ceiling or to the metal frame that supports the ceiling tiles. Don’t just lay the cable on top of the tiles.
4. When running cables through walls, label each cable at both ends.

Getting the tools that you need

Wire cutters: You need big ones for thinnet cable; smaller ones are okay for 10baseT cable. If you’re using yellow cable, you need the Jaws of Life.

A crimp tool: You need the crimp tool to attach the connectors to the cable. Don’t use a cheap $10 crimp tool. A good one will cost $100 and will save you many headaches in the long run. Remember this adage: When you crimp, you mustn’t scrimp.

Wire stripper: You need this only if the crimp tool doesn’t include a wire stripper.

7 Habits for Effectively Leading Healthcare Interoperability Initiatives

Habit 1: Be Proactive

The proactive habit can be applied in multiple ways to foster healthcare interoperability.

Flexibility in Data Transformation

First, there are multiple applications or healthcare providers that require patient information to be communicated in a specific data format. Each vendor or provider, of course, believes that their format should be the one followed. Consequently, one could be reactive and just wait for the other vendor or provider to change the way they accept or send patient data; however, doing this results in a stalemate. The better approach would be to act in a flexible manner and transform the data in the middle to the different specifications. An added benefit to this approach is the ability to implement a best-of-breed application approach, since the differing data formats can be transformed easily in the middle.

Leveraging Engine Technology

Second, working with other application vendors or medical device manufacturers can be a restraining experience. Waiting for point-to-point interfaces to be developed, delivered, and tied to their queues can be frustrating. Being proactive can be liberating. By leveraging interface engine technology, independence from various vendors can be gained while delivering healthcare interfaces to your customers in a more timely fashion.

Regional and Community Initiatives

Third, there are several regional or community based initiatives which are driving RHIOs or other healthcare interoperability efforts. Similarly, the Federal government has dedicated resources and issued directives around a more integrated healthcare system. Why do anything? Let the agencies and communities drive it. Although that is a possible approach to take, it is clearly a reactive one and may result in more pain later.

Organizations that take the initiative and are proactive in connecting with their departments or referring physician communities are realizing benefits today. From saving dollars with more efficient processes to increasing revenues by offering a better way to interact, the proactive approach can have a positive impact today while also offering a direction for struggling community initiatives.

IT Service

Finally, another proactive approach to healthcare interfacing is the way IT service levels are delivered. The reactive approach is to claim ignorance, because the monitoring capabilities are not available. The best proactive approach is to be alerted when an interfacing parameter has not met a defined threshold, and you receive a page or email with the change in status. Essentially, with this approach, you are the first to know and the first to respond. By being proactive in healthcare integration, the end result is:

• Adaptability – being flexible to adapt to the various data requirements
• Independence – removing total reliance on others to achieve your objectives
• Satisfaction – delivering responsive customer service

With a proactive mindset and approach, the move from being dependent to being interdependent begins.

Habit 2: Begin with an End in Mind

What is the end game? Is it streamlined patient data flow? Is it robust, connected healthcare workflows? Is it physician outreach, connecting to practices in an electronic manner? Is it just doing it in a simpler, less costly, and easier to manage way?

Envisioning what healthcare interoperability means for your organization is important in developing and implementing the right strategy and healthcare IT tactics. You need a target. Like the old adage says, “If you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time.” Direct your aim at the end in mind. If just connecting two applications to each other is the end game, then a point-to-point interface may be the best approach.

If monitoring a point-to-point interface while extending the leverage to other applications, then a mixed approach—point-to-point and interface engine—may be the best approach. If implementing a best of breed application strategy while connecting to referring physicians, laboratories, and imaging centers is the end game, then an integration platform may be the best approach.

Deciding what you want to achieve for your hospital, radiology practice, laboratory or clinic is important in deciding what integration approach should be taken. Without visualizing the end game, it usually translates into just muddling through. Muddling through costs more, frustrates more, and results in less. Recently, an executive director at a radiology practice was determining ways to offer better service to their referring physician community. The end game in her mind was delivering better service, and she knew that certain technology investments were necessary to realize that end game plan.

In her words, read the insights about how habits 1 and 2 came into play to move to a more interdependent approach.

“We knew we needed to integrate more technology across our practice. We needed to increase the efficiency of processes associated with billing and diagnostic reporting. In addition, we are receiving an increasing number of requests from referring physicians for HL7 interfaces. We wanted the control to respond quickly to these requests and the flexibility to accommodate all of the different HIS, PMS and EMR systems they might be using.”

With better service as the vision, the elements that needed to be in place in order to make it a reality came into full view.

Habit 3: Put First Things First

The patient is first. Delivering high quality patient care in a timely and accurate manner is fundamental. What helps facilitate putting patients first? There are many answers to this question. Having the right physicians, nurses, and other personnel is an essential part of the formula. Having the right facilities and equipment is a vital part of the formula. Having the right systems, applications, and ways to connect them is an integral part of the formula.

While the quality of care is largely determined by human hands, an expert mind and caring spirit, the delivery of the care is equally important. Healthcare IT plays a critical role by managing the systems and integrating the data flow. With IT support, the patient care experience becomes seamless through the various workflows.

In healthcare interoperability initiatives, key IT decisions need to be made in order to determine what needs to be put first. Decisions include:

Defining the integration benchmarks and desired results

• Development cycle time
• Deployment cycle time
• Resource requirements
• Manageability

Defining the desired turn around times

• Delivering patient reports to referring physicians
• Response time to correct a connection issue
• Re-sending an HL7 message from log files

Defining the operational cost structure to the integration platform environment

• Resource type required (e.g., Java engineer, IT analyst, etc.)
• Cycle time requirements
• Manageability requirements

These decisions along with others will drive your healthcare integration approach and aid in identifying which principles should come first.

For example, a large hospital used older technology to facilitate their integration efforts. The platform worked, but several issues arose. First, the existing integration platform required skilled Java developers, and these resources can be expensive. Second, the development and deployment cycle times for new interfaces were long and costly. Third, insight into how the interfaces were performing was challenging. On the surface, everything was working fine. Underneath the surface, challenges and issues were brewing, threatening to undermine the vision of delivering first-class patient experience.

Instead of waiting, the IT department took the initiative, explored new integration platforms, and initiated a migration. The result was better manageability of the integration environment and an exponential improvement in cycle times. In fact, over 30 interfaces were developed and deployed within the first six months after one training class.

Although the change was in the IT infrastructure, patient care was positively impacted. Key comments from the IT department included: “…our patients do not experience delays in the services they receive…” “We are able to deliver high quality patient care… orchestrating the clinical data flow between our healthcare applications.” With patient care coming first, the IT organization aligned itself to deliver.

Getting stuck in the IT issues (e.g., old technology platforms, “we’ve always done it this way,” etc.) keeps organizations in a dependent model. Moving beyond the typical IT issues and focusing on the important mission moves the overall organization beyond dependency.

Habit 4: Think Win/Win

With the first three habits firmly in place, independence is gained, and the transition from dependency to interdependency can begin. What does interdependency mean in healthcare? It means working with external healthcare providers in a seamless, integrated way. It also means facilitating data flow efficiently between different internal applications.

The seamless, productive interaction with external providers in tandem with high quality, effective data flow between internal applications is an interdependent healthcare environment. The end result of an interdependent healthcare community is enhanced patient care, including less frustration because the care experience is connected.

To gain these attributes of an interdependent healthcare environment, the first step is the win/win habit. How can healthcare IT organizations create win/win mindsets with others? Defining mutually beneficial terms is a start, and it needs to happen at three levels – with departments, external providers, and vendors. Often times, the IT mindset is:

• Departments – “I’ll deal with it later.”
• External providers – “How are we going to handle all these additional connection points?”
• Vendors – “They want how much for one interface? What do you mean it will be six months to get that interface?”

All of these may be valid points, but coming in with that thought process will only push the vision back to one of dependency, not move it forward. The right mindset will help to structure the right approach to continue to move the healthcare interoperability initiatives in the right direction.

For example, a laboratory was doing business as usual. Getting interfaces from their LIS vendor was a long and costly process. At the same time, the CIO saw that many of their referring clinics were beginning to install EMR applications. With a win/win mindset, the CIO determined what their referring clinics required, and they explored new technologies to gain independence from their LIS vendor. By deploying an interface engine approach, healthcare interoperability happened to over 200 different physician offices. Without the mindset to determine a better approach, this would have been a story of lost business and lost opportunity. Instead, it is one of making a difference in their network of care.

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood

Many times, we jump to what we need, rather than listening to what our partners are requesting. A simple question to ask to gain greater understanding should be “What are you going to do with the information that I give you?” By asking this question, it provides greater insight to how what you will deliver will be used. Many times, this will highlight additional information that will be required to deliver either to or above expectations.

Having a conversation without first understanding the other organization’s objectives, drivers, or concerns will be hollow. From one viewpoint, it will seem like one organization is dictating to the other. From another vantage point, it will be one of “they just don’t get it.” It is much easier to be understood when you first understand the other person or organization’s perspective.
As outlined above, there are three primary players in the healthcare interoperability picture, and each have a differing set of requirements. Understanding each, rather than assuming, is imperative.

Departments. In hospitals, there are many different ancillary applications that support critical functions for different departments. For example, the emergency room department has unique characteristics that require unique applications to support their activities. This extends to other departments from radiology to laboratory to dietary.

The departments are working diligently to perform their responsibilities in the most cost-effective, efficient manner possible. Interoperability is essential for departments in order to gain access to patient information quickly.

What are the key drivers for each department? Understanding the answer to this question will lead to a better understanding. Two key areas to explore include:

• Integration points – What patient information is required? Are all the points of integration internal or are there external points as well?
• Manageability – What level of involvement does the department want in terms of integration? Do they want the flexibility to build their own interfaces? Do they want the insight to know the status of the interface points? Do they want to troubleshoot or resend patient messages if problems occur?

Listening and understanding to what is needed will help craft the right approach.

External providers. External providers depend on your perspective. In many cases, it is the physicians who refer patients; the laboratories who conduct the standard or special tests; or the imaging centers who take, read, and analyze detailed images. The key areas to explore include:

Capabilities – What level of capability do the external providers have to electronically send or receive patient information? What time schedule are they on to be electronically connected with selected hospitals?
Systems – What systems will accept the information (e.g., EMR, RIS, HIS, LIS, etc.), and what data format is acceptable (e.g., HL7, CCR, etc.)?

Vendors. With vendors, the conversations can sometimes be demanding. Granted, vendors create some of the problems in enabling a cost-effective approach to integrating various applications together. It is like a struggle between countries. Each country has their own interests and wants to protect their boundaries and their sovereignty.

Understanding the perspective of the vendor may be critical to determining the best approach. This will be the toughest challenge for many providers to do, but a vital one. By understanding the vendor’s approach to integration or interfacing, you will be able to better define your organization’s healthcare interoperability approach.

Habit 6: Synergize

Although the word “synergize” is an overused term in the business world, it is critical to work with people from other departments or organizations with which you are trying to connect. If interdependence is to be achieved, then the sum of all the parts needs to work consistently and effectively with the whole.

What does synergize actually mean? Another term for synergy is alliance. In the healthcare environment, instead of treating each party as a department or vendor, it may be better to treat them as alliances. For alliances to work, everyone involved needs to work together. That is the point of synergy, and it is necessary to make connected healthcare initiatives work.

A few quick points:

• Do you involve other departments in the process of determining the best way to improve the flow of patient data?
• Do you work with your vendors to solve problems?
• Do you work with your referring physician community or reference laboratories or imaging centers to understand their requirements or to solve interoperability issues?
• Are you viewed as an alliance partner in your connected healthcare community or as an individual part?
• How much can your organization take on? Is there another approach to gain leverage?

The key point – recognize the individual difference but work to build an alliance with all the individual organizations involved. It is not an easy task, but each of the habits provide for a direction to realize this important point.

Examples of building synergy occur within provider organizations as well as vendor organizations. One example of building synergy is offered from a vendor perspective. Many development organizations try to do it all – build the best features for their application, build the best infrastructure platform in which their application is based, build the best way to capture customer requests into new releases, etc. In reality, doing it all internally can stretch resources and can become uneconomical.

One such vendor was in that situation. It was trying to release new features while also attempting to offer a robust integration platform to meet every customer requirement and incorporate every new healthcare standard that came along. Fractures soon began to emerge as the weight of their “do-it-all” approach bore down on the development staff. Consequently, the R&D director began to open up the approach and look at alternatives.

One alternative was to create an alliance with another company that could offer the integration platform to meet any client requirement and any healthcare standard. Through a collaborative partnership, focus returned to offering new features to meet growing customer requirements while offering robust integration through a seamless partnership. Growth in features, growth in revenue, and growth in customer satisfaction were happening in tandem. Although different habits were utilized to get to this point, this story illustrates synergy at its best.

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

If there is only one thing that we can do in our life or in our organizations, it should be to look continuously for ways to improve. Whether it is in our client relationships, the way we solve our problems, or the way that we approach solutions, keeping our eyes open to new ways to do things is a must. This process of renewal will keep progress moving forward.

To achieve healthcare interoperability in our communities, continuous improvement is a must, because – if for no other reason – there are so many changes to which we need to adapt. There is a simple choice – adapt and improve or maintain the status quo and keep the paper flowing.

Improvements can be realized in many different areas including:

• Resources required to build, test, and implement a connected community
• Mindset in working with various constituencies – departments, providers, and vendors, etc.
• Processes or workflows – understanding the desired flow and mapping the right technology to support the vision
• Technology platforms to support healthcare interoperability

The improvements can be realized through many different resources. From workshops and trade shows to case studies, white papers, and blogs, there are many different avenues to continue to grow and adapt. There also is simple interaction. Talking with people from similar or different organizations to gain their perspectives can open the thought process. Setting aside the time to learn and improve is the first step.

Summary

The demands for healthcare interoperability are clearly increasing. How the demands are met will determine the success rate. Stephen Covey provided a great framework to work through most issues and realize most visions. Although it is a practical approach, it is challenging to adopt the habits and make the changes necessary to stop the inherent dependencies and move to a more interdependent environment.

Organizations are achieving varying degrees of success in pursuing an integrated healthcare community. It may be through brute force, new ways, or just luck. Leveraging and using the 7 Habits is one way to make a longer-term impact on the goals and will make the process of getting there more rewarding.

Healthcare interoperability and the 7 Habits seem like a match made for success.