Protecting Data In Your Paperless Office
Compliance in Massachusetts - Dean Whalen
On Wednesday, February 15th, the Massachusetts Bar Association (MBA) and StenTel collaborated to bring MBA members new insight on complaint practices in the workplace regarding computer, data, and applications policies. The MBA’s CLE program focuses on recent case law, new legislation, emerging legal trends, new rules of practice and procedure, transitioning attorneys and issues of law practice management. Each year, approximately 80 courses are offered on significant trends and topics that highlight essential programs that will benefit attorneys and their practice. These course offerings appeal to attorneys working in varied areas of the law and take place at venues throughout the state.
Hosting the program was David White Jr., Esquire, program chair, Cynthia MacCausland, Esquire, of Law Offices of Cynthia E. MacCausland in Boston, and Dean Whalen, Esquire, with StenTel. Dean discussed new options in creating a paperless law office and practical considerations that many offices should consider adopting. He gave common examples of at-risk areas and offered solutions. Examples such as;
At-Risk: Desktop
Solutions:
Screen Saver Windows Updates Admin Rights
Lock & Walk Strong Passwords Encryption
Seven + Characters Long
At-Risk: Mobile Computing
Solutions:
Encryption Email
At-Risk: Data
Solutions:
Storage CD/DVD/Portable Storage Backup
At-Risk: Network Security
Solutions:
Firewall Antivirus / Malware Encrypted Email
Selecting Sender Social networking / File Sharing Instant Messaging
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Further practical considerations to think about for your office are manual vs. automatic email encryption solutions, creating a training process, holding trainings for employees, develop a WISP, and perform audits. If you would like more information or have any questions contact me at Dean.Whalen@stentel.com or 413-896-7297.
Useful Links:
Catuogno Court Reporting & StenTel Celebrate Super Bowl XLVI
On Friday, February3rd, the employees at our Springfield office were treated to an office Super Bowl Party! There was lots of food, games, and some competitive team rivalry. We had Patriot fans, Giants fans, Packer fans, and many more. Everyone was able to come together for good food and lots of laughs.
We ordered 20 pizzas from Pizza Hut, 2 3-foot subs, over 100 wings, chips and soda!
We also had a fun contest for everyone to participate in. The contest was to see who could guess the total number of combined, both Patriots and Giants, passing yards from Super Bowl XLVI. Whoever was the closest won a $25.00 Visa gift card. The winner, guessing 574 yards, was Dean Whalen.
What did you do for the Super Bowl? Who were you rooting for? What were your favorite commercials? Tell us about your party and any ideas we could use for next year!
PROTECT YOUR DATA: Attorney’s and Businesses Beware!!!
Your clients data could be at risk.
Protecting clients personal data in the new technology world needs to be taken seriously! In the wake of the new Massachusetts Data Security Law 201 CMR 17 there is finally a practical approach for law firms. This approach is outlined in Attorney Rodney Dowell’s podcast. Attorney Dowell is the Executive Director at Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers and Director of LCL’s Massachusetts Law Office Management Assistance Program.
Attorney Rodney Dowell
In 2010, Massachusetts issued 201 CMR 17. 201 CMR 17 is a regulation which requires businesses to protect personal data and information. Not complying puts businesses and law firms at risk to pay significant fines. It's crucial that all businesses and law offices protect themselves and their clients data. The link below is for Attorney Dowell's podcast. The podcast outlines some practical objectives that businesses and law offices can do to protect themselves.
Click Here for the "The Un-Billable Hour" Podcast
In protecting data, in the technology world, you will hear about the need for protection and the requirements to “encrypt” data. Encryption makes information unreadable unless you have the proper permissions and access to that information. Having an encryption solution for your files and emails are critical.
For businesses and law offices encryption needs, Catuogno Court Reporting and StenTel has partnered with Zix (http://www.zixcorp.com/ ) to provide us with our email encryption solution. Zix Corp is the leader in the industry for email encryption. Zix provides encryption solutions for the small or large businesses and is cost effective.
Our friends at Zix provide some great insight in their legal series blogs. Many Attorney’s ask: “ Do the DATA PROTECTON LAWS pertain to me and my firm?” For the answer to that question click below!
Zix Corp Blog
Enforcement of this law is starting to gain momentum. The Attorney general’s office has fined businesses. Massachusetts Attorney General Reaches $110,000 Data Breach Settlement with Boston Restaurant Group.
If you have any questions on how we can help protect your clients personal information, email Dean Whalen at Dean.Whalen@StenTel.com
Blog by: Dean Whalen, Esq.
"Catch the Spirit"
On Wednesday, January 18th, 2012 several of our Catuogno Court Reporting and StenTel employees had the opportunity to attend a "Catch the Spirit" event hosted by Mercy Medical Center. Catch the Spirit is a one hour luncheon and tour hosted by Mercy Medical Center. The Catch the Spirit initiative was established in 2004 for the purpose of informing the community about the health system and engaging the public in their future work. The event provides attendees with the opportunity to meet Mercy Medical Center’s visionary leaders and dedicated caregivers. Attendees have the opportunity to learn about recent healthcare advancements, technologies, personal stories from patients, and learn about Mercy’s mission to serve and be a healing presence in the community. Since initiated, Mercy Medical Center has welcomed over 3,000 community and 1,000 health workers.
The topic of Wednesday’s event was “Neurological Services.” We had the opportunity to hear from Dr. Christopher Comey from New England Neurosurgical Associates. Dr. Comey is a neurosurgeon at Mercy Medical Center. A neurosurgeon performs various diagnostic and surgical procedures on the brain and head, spine, spinal cord and spinal discs, peripheral nerves in arms and legs, and blood vessels affecting the brain, such as the carotid artery. Dr. Comey gave us an overview of his medical career, his role at Mercy Medical Center, and the hospitals new medical equipment.
Dr. Comey, M.D. and his staff Jessica Mongeau, R.N. and Laurene Avezzie, R.N. & B.S.N. join members of S.P.H.S. Foundation Board
After Dr. Comey's synopsis, everyone had the opportunity to scrub up and get a tour of the operating room. We were given a full body suit, hair nets and booties! The operating room was very impressive. There were so many different medical tools, Dr. Comey explained what they were and what role they played in operating. Then we were all given the opportunity to try out their high end microscope. As the tour was winding down Dr. Comey introduced us to a nurse who works at Mercy, her name was Jessica. Jessica wasn’t just a nurse, but also a former patient of Dr. Comey’s. She told us about her experience suffering back injuries as a child and what brought her to finally seek help. Dr. Comey was her surgeon and Jessica credited his surgical work and Mercy Medical Center’s care to giving her, her life back. There weren’t too many dry eyes in the operating room.
Catuogno Court Reporting & StenTel Scrubbed Up!
Catch the Spirit is a fantastic program. We were all so glad to have experienced it and to have had the opportunity to learn so much. If you would like to find out more about Catch the Spirit or when the next event is click here for their website. Have you been to a previous Catch the Spirit event? We would love to hear about your experience and what you were able to take away from this program!
Catuogno Court Reporting is a proud sponsor of the 2012
United States Olympic – Road To London.
The 2012 Olympics will be hosted in London on July 27th through August 12th. The importance of the Olympics is that it provides a shared global experience. Millions of people from around the world, come together to celebrate and support their country. With so many reasons for division, it’s a time when many issues can be put aside and a shared global unity.
Posted on the official website of the United States Olympic Committee, Lisa Baird, the USOC chief marketing officer said, “The Road to London Tour is all about sharing the magic of the Olympic and Paralympic Games and the spirit of our amazing athletes with the American public," "This program allows us to bring the Olympic experience directly to fans, while introducing them to the full program of Olympic and Paralympic sports in a fun and interactive way. We thank our sponsors for helping our fans get to know America's athletes and experience the excitement of the Games."
We are very proud to support such a great global event and look forward to this summer’s events! Will you be watching? Let us know what you enjoy most about the Olympics!
For more information on the 2012 Olympics check out their website.
StenTel – A 2011 Top Rated KLAS Medical Transcription Vendor
StenTel's Medical Accounts Team
KLAS’s mission is to improve healthcare technology delivery by honestly, accurately, and impartially measuring vendor performance. KLAS independently monitors vendor performance through the active participation of thousands of healthcare organizations. They use a stringent methodology to ensure all data and ratings are accurate, honest, and impartial. These ratings help healthcare providers make informed technological decisions by reporting vendor performance data. KLAS conducts over 1,900 healthcare provider interviews per month, working with over 4,500 hospitals and over 3,000 doctor’s offices and clinics. With independent researchers working throughout North America, they publish approximately 40 performance and perception reports per year.
KLAS graded StenTel on the size of the provider facilities, score frequency, percentage of positive commentary, report turnaround time, report quality, service ratings trend, total transcription volume outsourced, service ratings, onshore vs. offshore ratings, and overall score trend. With StenTel’s unrelenting mission for improvement, we were able to raise our standards, be more efficient and improve our performance! In 2011, StenTel improved its overall score by 6.7%! We are proudly ranked in the top ten medical transcription vendors, as reported by KLAS. We look forward to 2012 and continuing our dedicated services to our clients.
Click Here for more information on KLAS. If you have any questions about our medical transcription services please send us an email at Marketing.Sales@StenTel.com
Many of you are familiar with Catuogno Court Reporting, but our company also provides documention solutions for many other industries. StenTel provides documentation solutions to the healthcare, insurance, legal, as well as the public safety industries. Based in Springfield, Massachusetts with regional offices throughout New England, the company began as a legal documentation services company under the name Catuogno Court Reporting in 1966. The company entered the healthcare, insurance and public safety transcription market in 1990 as StenTel.
Since then, StenTel has developed a line of technologies relating to voice capture and documentation, including a patented transcription platform technology which currently supports thousands of clients across the healthcare, legal, and insurance markets. This weeks blog is written by George Catuogno.
The President and head of StenTel is George Catuogno, son of Ray Catuogno. We thought it would be a great way to start the new year with a review of 2011 and a look at the new expectations StenTel has for 2012!
Year in Review
As StenTel looks back on 2011, the one thing that marks our activities more than anything is our awareness of Health Reform. The impact on MTSOs and how best to position our company for sustainability, both directly and on behalf of our ASP subscriber community, has been a main focus.
As we embarked on 2011, we saw the need for modernization of StenTel’s ASP platform as well as a pressing need to weave medical transcription into a role that supports Health Reform in what is a highly strategic healthcare roadmap with complex, competitive forces. Our partnership with Court Square Group (CSG) has created the foundation for scaling complex, world-class solutions to meet these challenges.
StenTel’s 2011 activities have been characterized by the need for wholesale transition. Manifesting our vision through evolving strategy, innovation, and business development meant making bold moves. As we close out 2011, we are pleased to report our accomplishments:
1. The formation and significant advancement of our strategic partnership with CSG, a Life Sciences IT firm situated in close proximity to StenTel’s corporate office in Springfield, MA
2. The commercial release of our Natural Language Processing platform – our “NLP Portal”
3. The advancement of our strategic partnership with 3M in gaining access to clinical documentation improvement tools in what should be critical to the mission of every MTSO.
4. The creation of a marketing department to effectively drive market awareness in support of StenTel and our partners.
Court Square Group is now an integral part of our IT organization and has given StenTel a blend of original and new talent to tackle the challenges and opportunities health reform presents to the clinical documentation industry. Our NLP platform has been commercially released and end-user applications built to support competitive differentiators and new streams of income for our ASP community partners. Quietly, StenTel’s relationship with 3M has also evolved, creating additional pathways for our ASP subscribers to compete, which we look forward to sharing information about in 2012. Our marketing department has gained the requisite knowledge to apply their talents to helping StenTel and its community of partners with more effective business development campaigns.
In 2012, we look forward to sharing significant information about all of these developments as our new marketing team disseminates information about the many exciting opportunities StenTel is creating for its ASP community through newsletters, webinars and other forms of communication. We are grateful for the commitment and loyalty of our partners and wish you a prosperous year ahead as we endeavor to help you in that prosperity.
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If you would like to know more about StenTel please feel free to send us an email at Marketing.Sales@StenTel.com . Also, be on the lookout for our new StenTel website - Coming Soon!
Catuogno Court Reporting & StenTel Holiday Office Party!!
On December 17th we held our yearly Christmas Party here at Catuogno Court Reporting and StenTel. The food was prepared pot luck style by Catuogno Court Reporting and StenTel employees. We were also treated to some delicious Italian food from The Red Rose. There was a mish-mosh of food, from smoked pulled pork, baked ziti, calzones to Egg Nog cheesecake and Death by Chocolate trifle. No one walked away hungry! There was enough food for one more day of partying… Count me in!!
One of our fellow co-workers, Karen Gibson, showed us a few of her magic tricks!
Everyone was so impressed by Karen's magic tricks!
We also played Secret Santa!
Everyone was so excited about their gifts, especially Aaron & Ashley!
All and All it was a fun afternoon spent eating and chit chatting among us all…GOOD TIMES!!
By Diane Musa, Scheduling Manager
Did your office host a Holiday Party? If so, we would love to hear from you! We are always looking for new ideas and new ways to celebrate in our office. Leave us a comment or send us an email at Marketing.Sales@StenTel.com. We look forward to hearing from you!
Catuogno Court Reporting & StenTel Attend the 2011 MATA Holiday Ball
Catuogno Court Reporting and StenTel sponsored an event with the Massachusetts Academy of Trial Attorneys (MATA) at the 2011 Holiday Ball. In attendance from Catuogno Court Reporting and StenTel were Ray Catuogno, Dean Whalen and myself. It was a great event to meet and network with the Trial Attorneys that we have been doing business with for many years. It was also a great way to meet some of the up and coming attorneys in Boston.
Dean Whalen, Rich Wilson & Ray Catuogno
Our new office address has been advertised with MATA and we have seen a substantial increase in the Depositions and use of our Lawyer’s Conference Center in our Boston office.
If you would like to find out more information on the Massachusetts Academy of Trial Attorneys, click here.
"Fez"tival of Trees
Yesterday, Ray Catuogno took a group of us from Catuogno Court Reporting & StenTel out for a fun afternoon. We had a delicious lunch at Figaro’s Ristorante in Enfield, Connecticut followed by a tour of the "Fez"tival of Trees at the Melha Shrine. Ray donated a tree to the Melha Shrine and several of our employees spent hours beautifully decorating the Italian themed tree. All of the trees were beautiful and it was a great way to get into the holiday spirit.
Tree Donated by Catuogno Court Reporting & StenTel
Melha Shrine would like to thank Ray Catuogno for the donation of a Christmas tree to our “Fez”tival of Trees. Also, to Sandy for the Boston Red Sox blanket. We will be open on:
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Wednesday – Friday, December 14th – 16th from 4:00 PM – 9:00 PM
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Saturday, December 17th from 9:00 AM – 9:00 PM
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Sunday, December 18th from 11:00 AM – 5:00 PM
If you have time, please stop by and see the Christmas trees, visit the Silent Auction and check out the crafts.
Melha Shriners133 Longhill StreetSpringfield, MA 01108 (413)736-3647