Pro Tip: ***Find an IT specialist that will allow you to provide your own equipment, you may buy a few things through them like your server, and pay them an hourly rate to setup your network, workstations, router, printer, firewall etc… (they charge you for their time, if they have to setup each workstation individually it could take a while. To save money on workstation setups as them if they can setup 1 workstation with all of your software (i.e. X-ray software, Open Dental, Flex, Chrome etc.) clone the hard drive and use that to duplicate the setup on all the other workstations. Remember you will need an IT professional for ongoing monthly support – there is a company in DSN now providing this -for network security, HIPAA compliance, updates & maintenance, antivirus, remote backup
Cabling / IT closet
If you choose to do your own data cabling it’s not that hard and could save you a few thousand dollars, you can also talk to your electrician about helping with this or any IT friends or college kids. YouTube university has a ton of videos so you could figure it out from YouTube. We may make a video in the future to break it down.
Server –
Unless you have a lot of IT experience I would go with recommendations from your IT specialist here, this is obviously the most important piece of equipment in the IT department – expect to spend $3,000-4,000 + setup – if it’s less than this I would almost question if the quality is good enough