To read: ~ 6 minutes
Many hospitals have complex technology integrations with 200+ interconnected systems: which means that everything from pagers, mobile devices, networks and operating systems could be at play in any given communication problem.
With limited visibility into where problems originate, technical teams in healthcare environments are faced with an ongoing challenge: if every support issue is “urgent,” how do they prioritize the problems that demand immediate attention?
Add the constant pressure to resolve issues at top speed, maintain “24/7” availability, and do it all in an environment where communication systems directly impact patient care workflows—and you get a sense of the enormous strain on today’s healthcare tech experts.
80% of high-severity issues originate in other third-party systems, according to Connexall technical experts, adding even more complexity to potential remediations.
Structured Prioritization Framework with Proactive Monitoring
Bruno Rodrigues, Team Lead of Technical Support and Customer Experience at Connexall, and Sofia Arruda, Connexall Quality Management System Support Specialist, have developed a set of defined processes to help their technical teams delineate urgent from non-urgent incident tickets. By establishing a clear prioritization framework, they can properly allocate resources while ensuring critical issues receive immediate attention.
This system consists of a multi-tiered severity classification outline combined with proactive system monitoring.
By enabling technical support teams to identify patterns across the healthcare organization, you can prevent issues before they affect clinical workflows. And, like everything else Connexall does, this comprehensive approach prioritizes human expertise: combining automated system health checking with smart human intervention.
The Incident Management Framework
Step 1: Establish Clear Severity Definitions
“Priority One or Two are what we consider high-severity issues,” says Rodrigues. “Priority one is a complete outage: the system is completely down, nothing is functioning, or the server went into failure mode.” This kind of specific criteria is key to developing severity definitions.
As you think through each “level” of urgency, create definitions using specific criteria that all team members understand. Example severity levels:
- Priority 1: Complete system outage affecting the entire facility
- Priority 2: Partial outage affecting specific units or device groups
- Priority 3: Moderate issue affecting non-critical functions
- Priority 4: Minor issue or planned maintenance needs
Once you’ve established severity levels, align response time expectations accordingly:
- Priority 1: 24 hours
- Priority 2: 48 hours
- Priority 3: 5 days
- Priority 4: 15 days
Clear timelines and definitions are key when managing customer expectations and ensuring your support team is focused on resolving high priority issues—those that may have a direct impact on patient care. Even if customers would rather not wait five days, knowing there’s a “due date” for non-critical issues will soothe impatience. You’ll also be better equipped to assign tasks when everyone understands delivery expectations.
Step 2: Implement Proper Intake Channels
For every severity level, Rodrigues recommends instituting clear communication channels. Connexall customers know that for high-severity situations the recommendation is to call the support line and get a live person to talk to for help. This dedicated emergency channel helps both customer and support teams prioritize efficiently.
In addition to creating a dedicated emergency channel for high-severity issues, you can streamline support by:
Establishing intake processes that gather essential information immediately. Consider what you need to know to assign a severity level to any given problem. Are patients at risk? Have critical functions been impacted? How long before an “issue” becomes a “crisis?”
Enabling direct access to support personnel for urgent situations without queues. Don’t let callers get stuck in support call limbo. Urgent needs require immediate assistance. Build systems to accommodate this.
Training customers on which channel to use based on issue severity. Spread the word and host virtual and in-person training on how best to access help. When the Connexall project team completes an implementation and hands it off to support, they make sure the transition is smooth and the customer is prepared to access support if and when they need it.
Step 3: Deploy Multi-Level Notification and Escalation Protocols
When dealing with a priority one issue, the Connexall technical team sends two mandatory notifications:
One to the customer, letting them know they’re dealing with a high-severity issue, and an internal notification, alerting team leads to the ongoing problem.
Our structured process ensures high-severity issues are on everyone’s radar and promptly triaged. The support team should define escalation paths based on technical complexity and ensure clear documentation that indicates who is accountable at each stage.
Transparency is a key piece of successful troubleshooting, so Arruda recommends maintaining consistent communication with stakeholders through the resolution process, providing clear and regular updates even when still “in progress.”
Follow Up: Conduct Root Cause Analysis and Documentation
The first priority for any support team is providing a timely resolution and restoring system function. Once that’s complete, it’s vital to understand what caused the system disruption. Start by conducting a root cause analysis that clearly answers:
- What was the presenting issue?
- What steps were taken to troubleshoot?
- What was the final fix/solution?
Perform thorough testing to validate your resolution. Did it solve the root cause, or was it a temporary-fix?
Consolidate progress by:
- Documenting your detailed root-cause analysis for knowledge sharing. Consider creating searchable knowledge-base entries for similar future incidents.
- Sharing prevention strategies with both internal teams and customers. No better way to build trust than by proving to customers you’ve “been there, done that” when it comes to troubleshooting technical issues.
- Tracking patterns to identify systemic issues across your customer base. Adopt a proactive rather than reactive stance.
Demonstrable Improvement in System Reliability and Customer Satisfaction
For the Connexall support team, the best measure of success is the level of satisfaction they’ve built with customer healthcare organizations. “One of our goals,” says Arruda, “is to have satisfaction scores between 8 and 10 out of 10 on at least 92% of our evaluated tickets.”
For the past two years, they’ve achieved 9. 5 and 9.6 ratings across their customer base.
They credit their 90%+ customer satisfaction rates to two core tenets:
- Proactive Issue Identification:
The Connexall team’s goal is to identify issues before they arise, improving healthcare staff workflows across the board. Because of this focus, the Connexall system rarely goes down due to an issue on the Connexall side. Their team understands that keeping the system up and running—and at optimal performance—has a positive downstream impact on clinical workflows.This proactive approach means addressing issues before they affect user-facing applications and workflows, all while demonstrating system reliability through constant monitoring.
- Improved Root Cause Accuracy:
By establishing clear separation of issues based on source (Connexall vs. third-party systems), the support team can more accurately troubleshoot problems. Through systematic categorization, they reach solutions faster and better allocate technical resources for those demanding immediate attention.
An Ecosystem of Proactive Support
Healthcare communication systems are too critical to approach every problem “as it arises.” In the same way that clinicians have been trained to step back and create a plan—even in the midst of a crisis—the same should be true for the technical support staff and systems that keep healthcare communications up and running. We must treat the disease, not the symptoms.
By implementing an incident management plan with a structured triage framework, clear trouble ticket escalation protocols, and proactive monitoring, technical teams can transform from reactive and under pressure, to proactive and ready to answer any call.
The result: improved system reliability, enhanced customer satisfaction, and most importantly, better outcomes for patients and providers alike.
