IT services in Plainsboro, NJ

Plainsboro packs a lot into a small township. The hospital now called Penn Medicine Princeton Medical Center moved here from Princeton in 2012, off Route 1, and brought a medical office building with it. The Princeton Forrestal Center, Princeton University's 2,200-acre business campus, holds more than six million square feet of office and research space, with tenants that run from Novo Nordisk to start-ups in incubator space. And most of the township's 24,000 residents live in Princeton Meadows, a dense, largely rental area of garden apartments and townhouses.

The two kinds of business that bring the most specific IT questions are the medical practices and the small companies that are still growing into themselves.

The risk analysis most small practices haven't written down

The Medical Arts Pavilion at 5 Plainsboro Road is the hospital's medical office building, and while the health system occupies most of it, space was set aside for private physicians' offices. Being next to a hospital doesn't put a practice under the hospital's IT. An independent practice is its own covered entity under HIPAA, with its own obligations.

The obligation practices most often miss is the risk analysis. The HIPAA Security Rule requires a covered entity to assess the risks to the electronic patient information it holds, which means where it lives, who can get to it, and what could go wrong, and to act on what it finds. Plenty of small practices have bought the right software and believe that covers them. Then a payer audit or an incident asks for the written analysis, and there isn't one.

It isn't as heavy as it sounds for a practice of a few people. It's an inventory of systems and devices, an honest look at access and backups, and a short written record of the risks and what's being done about each. Done properly, it also shows you the specific gaps worth fixing, which is the useful part.

Start-ups whose accounts belong to whoever signed up first

The Forrestal Center is home to more than 175 companies, and some of them are very small, from incubator benches at Princeton Innovation Center BioLabs upward. Small companies all go through the same stage. The domain was registered on a founder's personal card, Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace was set up under someone's personal email, and the admin password lives in one person's head.

Nothing goes wrong until that person leaves, gets locked out, or simply isn't reachable on the day the domain renewal fails. Then the company discovers it doesn't actually control its own email, website or files, and getting them back from a provider means proving ownership of a business the provider has only ever seen as one individual.

Fixing this early takes an afternoon. Move the domain and the main subscriptions to a company-owned account, make sure at least two people can administer each one, turn on multi-factor authentication, and keep a short written record of what you're signed up to and where. It's far easier with ten people than with forty, and it's exactly the kind of thing an investor's or a customer's due diligence asks about.

What we most often help with in Plainsboro

• HIPAA security risk analyses for small medical and dental practices
• Access control, encryption and backup checks for practices handling patient records
• Moving domains, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace into company-owned accounts
• Multi-factor authentication and admin access for small, growing teams
• Office networks and Wi-Fi in Forrestal Center and Village Center suites
• Home computer repair and Wi-Fi for apartments and townhouses in Princeton Meadows

Areas we cover

We work throughout Plainsboro, including Princeton Meadows, Plainsboro Center, Village Center, and Princeton Forrestal Center.

Getting to you in Plainsboro

Plainsboro is about twenty-five minutes from North Brunswick down Route 1, depending on traffic. On-site work is scheduled rather than same-day, and we'll usually try to cover several things in one visit. For practices, a risk analysis is a planned piece of work anyway, and most day-to-day problems can be started remotely as soon as you call.

Common questions from Plainsboro

• We're a private practice in a building next to the hospital. Doesn't the hospital's IT cover us?

  Almost certainly not. The hospital's IT department looks after the hospital's systems. An independent practice is its own covered entity under HIPAA, responsible for its own computers, network, accounts and records, even if it refers to the hospital and logs in to some of its systems. It's worth confirming in writing what, if anything, the health system manages for you. Most practices find the answer is nothing on their side of the door.

• What's a HIPAA risk analysis, and do we really need one?

  Yes. The Security Rule requires it of every covered entity, whatever the size. It's a written assessment of where your electronic patient information lives, who can reach it, what could go wrong, and what you're doing about each risk. For a small practice it's an inventory and a short document rather than a binder, and it should be revisited when things change, like new software, a new location or new staff. We do these assessments. We're not a certification body, so we can't offer formal attestation, but the analysis itself is what auditors ask to see.

• Our company's Microsoft 365 was set up by a co-founder who's leaving. What do we do?

  Sort it out before they go, while they can still sign in. Add a second global admin under a company account, make sure the domain registration and billing are in the company's name rather than theirs, and transfer or document anything else set up under their personal email. Doing this after someone has left and their account is gone is possible but slow, and you'll be proving ownership to a support desk.

• We're a small company in shared incubator space. Doesn't the building handle our IT?

  Usually only part of it. Shared space typically provides the internet connection and often the Wi-Fi, but your laptops, your accounts, your data and who can get into them are still yours to manage. Find out in writing what the space provides and what it doesn't. Check whether your devices sit on the same network as every other tenant's, and plan for the day you outgrow the space, because your accounts and files need to move with you even if the network doesn't.