Get Botox Without the Injections! Elevating Video Call Appearance with Microsoft Teams

get botox without the injections elevating video call appearance with microsoft teams

High-definition cameras in video calls can be a double-edged sword. While they capture every detail, sometimes they can be a bit too revealing, especially during professional meetings. Microsoft Teams has introduced two new features to address this: Adjust Brightness and Soft Focus. Let’s explore how these settings can enhance your appearance in a video call.

Navigating to New Features in Teams Video Call

You can find these new features in your Device settings. Simply scroll to the bottom, and you’ll see options for Adjust Brightness and Soft Focus. Here’s a quick guide on how each setting can transform your video call experience:

  1. Adjust Brightness: Initially, with this setting turned off, your video feed might look standard, potentially shadowy in low-light conditions. However, once you activate the Adjust Brightness feature, you’ll notice a significant improvement. This setting subtly enhances the lighting on your face, particularly useful in darker environments. The effect is a more balanced and brighter appearance, as shown in our demonstration images.thumbnail image 1 of blog post titled What’s New in Microsoft Teams | May 2022
  2. Soft Focus: The Soft Focus feature is especially handy for softening facial details. When turned on and set to maximum, this feature gently blurs facial imperfections and lines. The result isn’t overly dramatic but provides a subtle enhancement, smoothing out areas like under-eye bags or minor wrinkles. This comparison with the previous image illustrates the softening effect of the Soft Focus feature.

A Balance of Clarity and Comfort

These settings in Microsoft Teams strike a balance between high-definition clarity and the comfort of not having every facial detail in the spotlight. Whether you’re in a dimly lit room or just want a more forgiving video appearance, these features can be easily adjusted to suit your needs.

At WheelHouse IT, we believe in leveraging technology to not only enhance productivity but also to boost confidence and professionalism in a virtual environment. Stay tuned to our blog for more insights and tips on making the most out of Microsoft Teams and other technology solutions.

What Are the Three Rules of HIPAA?

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If your healthcare organization collects and stores personal information as part of your operations, it’s vital that you and your staff are familiar with and adhering to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). HIPAA includes three rules for protecting patient health information, namely:

  • The Privacy Rule
  • The Security Rule
  • The Breach Notification Rule

HIPAA was established by the federal government in 1996 with the intent to protect sensitive patient information from disclosure. As a healthcare organization, it’s paramount that you’re shielding your patients’ information from inadvertent or intentional exposure and potential risks. Any identifiable health information needs to be protected as mandated by national standards. There are serious consequences for failure to adhere to the three HIPAA rules, including financial penalties. Any security breach of electronic information systems through unauthorized access to electronic health records, confidential health, and medical history, or electronically protected health information can result in civil money penalties (and even criminal penalties), a loss of reputation for healthcare professionals, and even the loss of employment for an employee.

Businesses can face fines of up to $1.5 million per year in monetary penalties for failing to comply with the law and addressable implementation specifications. As a result, if you are one of the covered entities under HIPAA, you must follow the three HIPAA rules and security management processes, taking appropriate corrective action when necessary.

How HIPAA Helps Private Health Care Organizations

Prior to the introduction of HIPAA, Private Healthcare Information (PHI) wasn’t securely protected as there were no directive mandates or processes in place to secure personal health information.

In the early origin of HIPAA, there were privacy and security rules outlined to help protect patient records. Protected Health Information (PHI) was the focus of HIPAA’s new standards, which applied to the entire healthcare industry.

In addition to providing important protections, ultimately HIPAA’s primary goal was to improve the patient experience. Covered entities were given a variety of policies and procedures to ensure that their client’s information was protected without a lot of hassle. As healthcare providers implemented these policies, their patients and employees benefitted from the resulting reduced paperwork and improved workflow.

One way to meet HIPAA’s requirements is to use code sets in conjunction with patient identifiers. These codes shielding identifiable health information improved health insurance portability as it increased the ease of information transfer. With the Portability and Accountability Act in mind, healthcare providers attempt to make the patient’s experience more pleasant.

HIPAA’s federal standards also serve some much more minor purposes. Life insurance loans may be exempt from tax deductions, depending on the circumstances. It also improves the efficiency of healthcare services and makes it easier for patients to interact with them.

Who needs to have HIPAA compliance?

Private hospitals, health insurance companies, medical discount providers, and other business associates are all included in the scope of HIPAA’s application.

These types of businesses are known as “covered entities,” and must abide by the HIPAA regulations and security standards. Exceptions to the HIPAA rules for covered entities are extremely rare.

A company or organization that provides third-party health and human services to a covered entity must adhere to HIPAA regulations. As “business associates,” these companies are subject to the same regulations as the covered entities, even though they do not provide direct services.

Before engaging in any shared healthcare operations, a business associate agreement must be signed by both business associates and covered entities. Before undergoing any procedures, the confidentiality and integrity of protected health information must be preserved, and the business associate agreement does that.

What Are the Three Main Rules of HIPAA

As mentioned earlier in this article, HIPAA legislation comprises a few rules that outline what you must do to comply with the law. We’ll now discuss them in detail below:

1. The HIPAA Privacy Rule

HIPAA defines the circumstances under which a person may disclose or use protected health information. Everyone has a right to privacy and this rule helps ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place to protect personal health information. Those who are covered by this policy must adhere to a special set of rules.

The standards set by the privacy rule address subjects such as:

  • Which organizations must follow the HIPAA standards
  • What is Protected Health Information (PHI)
  • How organizations can share and use PHI
  • Permitted usage and disclosure of PHI
  • A patient’s rights over their health information

In 2003, the HIPAA Privacy Rule was first put into place. At that point, the affected entities included healthcare providers as well as healthcare clearinghouses and other health insurance entities. Healthcare-related business partners joined the list in 2013.

For the most part, the rule on patient privacy restricts the extent to which medical records can be shared without explicit consent. It does also provide some rights to patients including their right to obtain and examine their own health information. For example, it allows patients and their next of kin (representatives) to access their medical records under the HIPAA privacy rule. As outlined in the Privacy Rule, any requests for access and disclosure must be responded to within 30 days of receipt by the Covered Entities. Upon receipt, if a patient determines an error, the Privacy Rule enables them to request a correction.

The Privacy Rule also restricts the usage of health information which could identify a person (protected health information or PHI). Covered entities cannot use or disclose PHI unless:

  • It’s permitted under the privacy rule, or
  • The individual has authorized it in writing.

The privacy rule does not restrict de-identified health information.

2. The HIPAA Security Rule

The HIPAA Security Rule sets out the minimum standards for healthcare organizations to protect electronic protected health information (ePHI). To access that information in electronic format, even those who are technically capable of doing so would have to meet those standards. At its core, the HIPAA Security Rule requires healthcare providers to have the necessary administrative, physical, and technical safeguards implemented to ensure the ePHI’s integrity, security, and confidentiality is maintained.

The HIPAA Security Rule covers the following aspects:

  • The organizations that may need to follow the Security Rule and be deemed covered entities.
  • Safeguards, policies, and procedures that can be put in place to meet HIPAA compliance
  • Health care information that is under the protection of the Security Rule

To put it simply, anyone who is part of the business associates (BA) or covered entities (CE) and can access, alter, create, or transfer recorded ePHI will be required to follow these standards. These technical safeguards will involve NIST-standard encryption in case the information goes outside the firewall of the company.

In addition to technical safeguards, the Security Rule will include several physical safeguards. These physical safeguards may entail positioning workspaces in certain ways. For example, if your administrative staff are in a public area, others shouldn’t be able to see a computer screen because of a workstation layout.

Administrative safeguards are also checked and they include the Security Rule and the Privacy Rule. A privacy officer and a security officer are required to conduct regular audits and have a risk analysis process as part of these safeguards on an ongoing basis.

These evaluations are critical to the safety of the system. When considering possible threats to protected health information, your privacy officer and security officer don’t care if it’s just a theory. Consequently, they plan to implement a risk management plan in response to their audits and hypotheses to help avoid any potential risks that could occur in the future.

A covered entity must take the following steps to ensure the security of all ePHI they create, send, or receive:

  • Ensure the confidentiality integrity and availability of the ePHI
  • Protect against improper uses and disclosures of data
  • Protect the ePHI against potential threats, safeguarding their medical records
  • Train employees so that they are aware of the compliance factors of the Security Rule
  • Adapt the policies and procedures to include any updates to the Security Rule

Confidentiality, integrity, and availability rules in health care must be met by the covered entity. Access to health data needs to be secure and protected from any potential breaches.

3. The HIPAA Breach Notification Rule

Occasionally, there may be a breach that leaves your patients’ protected health information vulnerable. A breach can be any impermissible disclosure under the Privacy Rule that may compromise the security or privacy of protected health information. This is where the Breach Notification Rule would be enacted. The Department of Health and Human Services must be informed as soon as possible if there has been a data breach. Regardless of the nature or scale of the breach, this must be done within 60 days of its discovery. This is where a good risk management plan is valuable.

If a breach during administrative actions involves a person‘s personal information, that person must be notified within 60 days of the discovery of the breach.

In the event of a large-scale breach that affects more than 500 patients in a specific jurisdiction, the media should be informed as well.

An immediate announcement of a privacy violation is required by the HIPAA rule for breach notification. The Office for Civil Rights may impose fines if you don’t comply.

Alternatively, the Covered Entity may decide not to send a breach notification if it can show that the critical element of the PHI has not been compromised. A violation of privacy and security rules would be warranted if they are found to have been compromised.

Reportable Breaches and Exceptions

A breach of PHI occurs when an organization uses or improperly discloses PHI, even if it’s an accidental disclosure. However, organizations are only required to send alerts for identifiable health information that is not encrypted. In addition to this, there are three additional circumstances in which the breach notification rule is more lenient, during such compliance violations and PHI breaches. This may include:

  1. If it was unintentional or done in good faith, and was within the scope of the authority.
  2. If it was done unintentionally between two people permitted to access the PHI.
  3. If the organization has a good faith belief that the person to whom the disclosure was made would not be able to retain the PHI.

Under such a case, the organization should ensure that such incidents don’t reoccur and take corrective action plans. Breach alerts are required only for unsecured PHI. If you secured it as specified by this guidance, then you don’t need to send the alerts.

How Wheelhouse IT Can Help You Adhere to HIPAA Guidelines

You may believe that you can meet the requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) on your own, and you may be right. A HIPAA-verified Managed Service Provider (MSP) makes it much easier to achieve HIPAA compliance than if you were to do it on your own.

To keep your organization and in-house IT department HIPAA compliant, you can rely on Wheelhouse IT. Some of the benefits of working with us include:

  • Conducting HIPAA security risk assessments
  • Encrypting all PHI and stored data
  • Implementing backup and disaster recovery plans to keep data secure
  • Identifying system vulnerabilities and providing high-quality solutions
  • Providing the necessary technology to ensure data security
  • Providing services such as Remote Monitoring Management (RMM), cloud-to-cloud backup, and authentication and access control

WheelHouse IT is ready to help your business navigate HIPAA compliance.

If you are looking for the assistance of an MSP for your HIPAA compliance needs, book time on our calendar below.

7 Social Media Content Ideas For When You’re Uninspired

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Social media is a fun and effective way to promote your business and boost sales in many cases. Making sure that you put effort towards interacting online and creating quality content on your socials frequently can go a long way to further your business. However, every social media manager and coordinator has reached a point where they feel uninspired and their creativity has run out. This happens to even the best content creators. Below is a list of social media content ideas that is sure to fill in some gaps and hopefully get the creative ball rolling again the next time you’re feeling stumped.

Promote Blog Articles

Once you’ve posted blog articles on your company’s website, make sure you promote them on your social profiles. Not only can this help with engagement and click-through rates, but this can also help bring more visitors to your website and in turn boost conversion rates. You can do this with new blog articles and you could even link to past articles that still hold relevancy.

#TeamTuesday

Showing off your organization’s team is almost always a sure way to boost engagement rates by showing the humans behind your operations. After all, photos with faces perform almost 40% better than without faces. Here at WheelHouse IT, we sometimes post a team member highlight on Tuesdays and use the hashtag #TeamTuesday as a fun alliteration. However, you can, of course, post your team members any day of the week!

Tips/Updates

Does your company have any news to share? Are there any updates that could affect current and potential clients? Have you found any tips to share that are pertinent to your industry and could be helpful to users? All of these make for useful and important content pieces that you can share on your company’s socials through your feed or even stories.

Quizzes

Posting a simple and fun multiple-choice question in the form of a pop quiz is a simple way to prompt people to stop, think, and comment on their answers. This can have the same effect as posting an open question. However, this type of post is even easier to engage with since all people have to comment is a letter as their answer. 😉 

For example: 

How many cups of coffee have you had today? 

  1. A) 1
  2. B) 2
  3. C) 3
  4. D) 4+

Company Testimonials

Online reviews, client testimonials, employee testimonials, and even kind emails or messages that show how your business is helping make a difference for your clients or your staff for the better can go a long way in displaying your legitimacy on social media. Creating an on-brand and eye-catching graphic with your favorite blurb out of a testimonial or review always makes for a good slice of content.

Memes

Comic relief can be a great way to show people your page’s humanity, so you don’t risk appearing boring and stiff. While providing valuable content pertaining to your business and industry is a crucial practice, it’s also sometimes necessary to have fun with your page.

When posting memes always be sure to keep it light, keep it relatable, and keep it simple! You don’t want your meme so niche that it only speaks to a few users. This is your chance to appeal to a wider audience and illicit a light chuckle and, if you’re lucky, a higher share rate.

Open Question

Simply asking your followers open questions through feed posts and stories that can prompt them to comment on their answers can be an easy and effective way to elicit engagement. However, it can’t just be any random question. It would be best in most cases to make this question relate to your business somehow.

Bonus: Dogs!

There aren’t many statistics that back up our claim that photos with your furry (or not so furry) loved ones will get you higher engagement rates. However, we’ve seen it firsthand! Our posts which include our staff’s pets, get almost as much engagement as posts with human faces!

We hope these social media content ideas help inspire you when you aren’t feeling your most creative. If you’re looking for help promoting your business online, check out our monthly Online Presence Management plans and start showcasing your brand and drawing traffic.

Tip: Use Dark Mode to Go Easy on your Eyes

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Staring at a bright computer screen all day can bother your eyes, especially if it’s done on a routine basis. We know that staying away from computers and devices is something that we cannot get away from in the business environment, but you can take steps to make it more manageable and easier on your eyes through Dark Mode.

Here are some ways to enable darkness mode for your Windows operating system and its applications. However, take note that most of your desktop applications will not be affected by default––only the ones associated with Microsoft and Windows. You should always check the settings for other applications, as they may have darkness mode built into them.

Enable Dark Mode for Windows

The blanket setting for dark mode in the Windows operating system can be found here: Settings > Personalization > Colors. You should see the option for dark mode under Choose Your App Mode. This does not change all of the settings for all of your applications, so be sure to check the settings for any apps you use regularly.

Enable Dark Mode for Edge

Microsoft Edge is Windows’ default web browser, so (as expected) it has a dark mode setting. You can enable it through the three-dot menu on the right side of the screen. Select Settings, navigate the drop-down menu and select Choose A Theme. From here, choose Dark.

Enable Dark Mode for Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office has a dark option that can be enabled through the settings. You can do so by opening any Office application, like Word or PowerPoint, then going to File > Options. Under the General tab, click on Personalize Your Copy of Microsoft Office. You can then set your Office theme to Black.

That’s all you need to do; dark mode should be enabled on your Microsoft products. Other applications might have extensions or add-ons that will allow it, so make sure you do a quick search to see how you can make dark mode happen for your specific applications. Just make sure they are legitimate––you don’t want to put your infrastructure at risk trying to make things more convenient for yourself.

We hope you have found this blog helpful! If so, why not share it with some of your friends or colleagues?

What are some other tips you would like to see us cover in the future? Let us know in the comments, and be sure to check out our weekly blogs, so you don’t miss a beat.

Outlook Keyboard Shortcuts Everyone Should Know

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Just like the other Microsoft products in the Office suite, like Word and Excel, Outlook has several keyboard shortcuts that you can use to be more productive. We’ve put together a handy guide of some of the most helpful keyboard shortcuts you should keep in mind to get the most out of Outlook.

As always, with quick guides like these, we urge you to consider printing out this message so that you have it as a quick reference. You can use it to up your Outlook game!

Basic Outlook Functions

First, let’s talk about some of the most basic functions of Microsoft Outlook.

For PC

  • Create a message: Ctrl + Shift + M
  • Send a message: Alt + S
  • Insert a file: Alt + N, A, F
  • Delete an item: Delete
  • Reply to a message: Alt + H, R, P
  • Reply All to a message: Alt + H, R, A
  • Forward a message: Alt + H, F, W

For Mac

  • Create a message: ⌘ + N
  • Send a message: ⌘ + RETURN
  • Add an attachment: ⌘ + E
  • Delete an item: Delete
  • Reply to a message: ⌘ + R
  • Reply All to a message: SHIFT + ⌘ + R
  • Forward a message: ⌘ + J

Navigating Outlook

The following keyboard shortcuts are used to move around Outlook and showcase different views.

For PC

  • Switch to Mail: Ctrl + 1
  • Switch to Calendar: Ctrl + 2
  • Switch to Contacts: Ctrl + 3
  • Switch to Tasks: Ctrl + 4
  • Switch to Notes: Ctrl + 5
  • Switch to Folders: Ctrl + 6
  • Switch to Shortcuts: Ctrl + 7
  • Switch to the next open message: Ctrl + .
  • Switch to last open message: Ctrl + ,

For Mac

  • Switch to Mail: ⌘ + 1
  • Switch to Calendar: ⌘ + 2
  • Switch to Contacts: ⌘ + 3
  • Switch to Tasks: ⌘ + 4
  • Switch to Notes: ⌘ + 5
  • Display the next message: CONTROL + ]
  • Display the previous message: CONTROL + [

Creating Items or Files

Sometimes you might need to make items within Outlook. Here are some of the most common types you might need.

For PC

  • Create an appointment: Ctrl + Shift + A
  • Create a contact: Ctrl + Shift + C
  • Create a contact group: Ctrl + Shift + L
  • Create a folder: Ctrl + Shift + E
  • Create a meeting request: Ctrl + Shift + Q

For Mac

  • Create an appointment: (While in Calendar view) ⌘ + N
  • Create a contact: (While in Contacts view) ⌘ + N
  • Create a folder: SHIFT + ⌘ + N

There are so many keyboard shortcuts for Microsoft Outlook that we cannot list them all here, so for even more tips, be sure to check out Microsoft’s official website at this link.

What are some other tips that you would like to see us cover in the future? Let us know in the comments, and be sure to check out our weekly blogs so you don’t miss a beat.