3 Ways to Lighten Your IT Department’s Load Using the Intranet
Many small and mid-sized hospitals have limited resources when it comes IT help desk and healthcare information technology services. Many times the Network Engineer, DBA, and Support Specialist are all the same person or divided up between a few. Needless to say, they can be stretched thin at times when handling support calls and other mission critical tasks at same time. In this post I will mention just a few ways the Intranet can be an invaluable tool to provide relief to the IT department by reducing support calls.
More often than not, when a user runs into a technical problem, they will go to the IT page of the hospital intranet to either find a way to contact support, or find information to solve the problem themselves. We want to encourage the user to go the second route as much as possible. When designing your IT intranet page, put any user manuals, links to vendors’ support pages, and a link to an FAQ page above the fold of the page. Make these more prominent than the support number and email or ticket tracking system. This will encourage them to take initiative in finding a solution instead of relying solely on support. HospitalPORTAL makes it very easy to rearrange modules to help accomplish this effect.
Another way to reduce support calls is to create a peer support group. You can set this up as a message board or discussion forum where users can share tricks that they discovered on their own or ask their peers about issues that they are having. It is also a good idea to have a discussion forum for each department so that users can discuss items specifically pertaining to their line of work in the hospital. HospitalPORTAL provides a place for our clients to go and share ideas on how to best utilize all the features and tools we provide. Click here if you are already a HospitalPORTAL client and want to take a look. It works out great for us and provides perspective on how they use our system and common support issues that can help us provide better service.
Last, a feature that many of our clients’ IT departments are utilizing is how-to videos. We dedicated a recent blog post to ways how-to videos on the intranet can help. In short, these videos are a great way to engage users and help them with the most common issues they may have. We, at HospitalPORTAL posted some how-to videos on our site for our clients and we noticed a considerable reduction in issues the videos address. Try a few videos on issues you get on a regular basis. They are easy to make with free screen capture software that creates video files complete with audio. A simple internet search will find you many options for screen capture software.
By using these three tips, you are sure to reduce the amount of calls and tickets coming into your IT department. HospitalPORTAL makes it simple and intuitive to implement these changes right out of the box. Share your ideas for ways to reduce IT help desk calls.
