Most disagreements between a business and its managed service provider (MSP) are not about quality. They are about assumptions. The administrator assumed the provider was backing up the shared drive. The provider assumed the facility was handling new-hire paperwork. A laptop is stolen, a backup fails, or a vendor cannot reach the right person, and everyone discovers that nobody actually owned the task.
A RACI chart is an old project management tool that fixes this. It is simple enough to build in an afternoon, and it is one of the most useful documents in a shared IT model.
For every task or system, assign each party one of four roles:
Responsible: does the work.
Accountable: owns the outcome and has the final say. Only one party should be accountable for each item.
Consulted: gives input before decisions or work, in a two-way conversation.
Informed: is told about the result, in a one-way update.
The rule that matters most is "one accountable owner per row." If two parties are both accountable, neither is.
Use roles rather than names, since people change. A typical chart for a healthcare or senior-living operator has columns such as:
Administrator or executive director
Office manager or HR
Department heads such as the DON or business office manager
Your MSP's helpdesk
Your MSP's engineers or account manager
Third-party vendors, such as your EHR provider, internet carrier or copier company
Build the rows from the areas where confusion is most common.
Answering staff helpdesk requests
Resetting passwords and unlocking accounts
Setting up and retiring user accounts when staff join or leave
Ordering and replacing hardware
Maintaining antivirus and endpoint protection
Applying software patches
Managing multi-factor authentication
Running security awareness training
Completing the HIPAA security risk analysis
Deciding who has access to which systems
Reporting a suspected incident
Monitoring network and internet connections
Managing backups and testing restores
Maintaining the disaster recovery and downtime plan
Managing the firewall and Wi-Fi
Contacting the internet provider during outages
Managing the EHR vendor relationship
Renewing licenses and warranties
Approving purchases
Consider the row "Remove access for terminated employee." The office manager is Responsible for notifying IT the same day. The MSP helpdesk is Responsible for disabling the account. The administrator is Accountable, since the decision to terminate access is a management one. The department head is Informed. Written out, nobody has to guess.
List every IT-related task you can think of. Start with your contract's scope and your last year of support tickets.
Meet with your MSP's account manager and fill in the chart together.
Look for rows with no accountable owner, or with two. Resolve them.
Add the items where the answer is "nobody." These are the gaps, and finding them is the whole point.
Have the administrator and the MSP sign off, and store the chart with your contract.
Review it at least once a year and after any major change, such as a new facility, a new EHR module or a staff turnover.
Too much detail. A chart with 200 rows will not be used. Aim for 30 to 50 meaningful items.
Assigning "everyone." If everyone is responsible, no one is.
Treating it as a blame tool. The purpose is clarity, not fault-finding.
Letting it go stale. An outdated chart is worse than none.
Ignoring third parties. Vendors need rows too, with a named person on your side who manages each relationship.
Use the chart during onboarding of new managers, in incident response drills and when you review your MSP's performance. If a ticket falls through the cracks, check the chart first, and fix the chart rather than the person.
UnityCare IT works with healthcare and senior-living organizations across Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas, and we are glad to walk through a RACI template with you, whether you are a current client or evaluating your current arrangement.
An outsourced IT department with proactive maintenance and one number to call.
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