If you are an administrator or executive director, you probably judge your IT support by how loudly people complain. That is a start, but it is a noisy and unreliable signal. Staff who are patient may suffer in silence, while a single bad experience can overshadow months of good work.
A handful of simple measures can give you a clearer view. You do not need to be technical to understand them, and a good IT partner will be glad to share them.
Response time is how long it takes for someone to acknowledge a request. It is different from resolution. Ask for the average and the longest response times, broken down by priority. Your agreement should define what each priority level means. For example:
Urgent: affects resident care or many staff, such as an EMR outage.
High: affects a department or a critical function.
Normal: affects one person with a workaround available.
Low: requests and planned improvements.
If everything is treated the same, urgent issues get lost.
How long does it take to actually fix problems? Averages can hide long delays, so ask for the median and for the number of tickets open longer than a week. A rising backlog of old tickets signals trouble.
This is the share of issues solved on the first call or chat without escalation or a callback. A high number means the front line is skilled and has what it needs. A low number may mean staff are being passed around.
Are the same problems coming back? A printer that fails every week or a login problem recurring for the same user suggests that technicians are treating symptoms. Ask for a report of the top recurring problems and what is being done about root causes. Good providers treat repeat issues as projects to eliminate.
Volume by department, location and category reveals patterns. A spike after a software change, or a unit with disproportionate problems, can guide training and investment. Volume itself is not good or bad. A sudden drop may mean people have given up on submitting tickets.
Ask for short satisfaction ratings after each ticket closes and review comments. A few comments tell you more than a score. Combine this with your own conversations with department heads, especially nursing leadership.
Support is not only reacting. Ask for evidence of proactive tasks:
Patch and update compliance.
Backup success and restore tests.
Device health and aging hardware.
Security alerts reviewed and resolved.
License and warranty tracking.
Care is around the clock. Ask how after-hours calls are handled, how often they occur and how quickly they are answered. Test it occasionally.
A monthly or quarterly summary should be clear and brief, ideally one or two pages, with:
Ticket counts and response and resolution times against agreed targets.
Top issues and what is being done.
Upcoming risks such as aging equipment.
Security and backup status.
Recommendations with estimated costs.
If you get a stack of raw numbers with no commentary, ask for a meeting to discuss what they mean.
Which issues took the most staff time last month?
What problems are recurring and why?
Are we meeting our response targets? If not, what will change?
What risks do you see that we should budget for?
What could we do on our side to reduce tickets, such as training?
Metrics can be gamed. Closing tickets quickly without solving the underlying problem looks good on paper. Balance the data with feedback from staff and by walking the building. Compare against the targets in your agreement rather than against national averages that may not fit your setting.
UnityCare IT provides clear reporting and regular service reviews for its healthcare and senior living clients. If you would like an outside look at your current support, we can offer a candid assessment.
Call or text: 405-285-3845
New customers: start@unitycareit.com
Existing customers: support@unitycareit.com
Address: UnityCare Technologies, 2524 N Broadway Ste 554, PMB 947974, Edmond, Oklahoma 73034-4172