Incident priority

[Aynsley]

Hello all,

I have just taken up post as ICT Support Manager for a large NHS Division in Scotland & im tasked with, amongst other stuff, creating a single service desk for the healthcare area taking in 2 major acute hospital sites, 50 + GP practices & health centres and a few other related places.

I have the ITIL foundation certificate which I gained a few years ago but have never really been able to put what I learned into practice up until now!

I was a bit rusty but I have picked up the books again & its got me thinking about loads of things so I am looking for some feedback on my ideas and here is the first.

This is my go at Incident priority. As part of the project, I plan to meet the heads of depts, business managers & users base to get feedback & listen to what they have to say.

Highest Priority

1. Healthcare, Infrastructure, Data & Security
2. Business or User Critical
3. Business or User Standard
4, Service Request
5. Planning

Lowest Priority

I have started to define the 5 priorities in more detail


Thanks

Aynsley

[m_croon]

Hi Aynsley,

It seems your doing just the right thing. As I always say: "paper has patience". With that I mean that no ITIL book will give you a definitive perspective on how to deal with your priorities. These differ per organisation and should be determined in close contact with the business. And that is exactly what you are planning to do as you said in your note.

Personally, I would rewrite the terms you use to more general names, for instance:
Prio Urgent - High - Normal - Low - None. Yet this is merely cosmetic and a matter of taste. It might come in a bit handy when you hire external staff (more recognizable). The definition behind these terms would/could still be the one you already have.

Hope this helps, sounds like you are doing the right thing by listening to the business.

[m_croon]

PS On second thought, I think you'd have to elaborate on your definition. Does "healthcare" always imply that a patient is in danger? Is it also possible that a less important medical administration tool would be seen as "healthcare"? If that is the case, a healthcare-disruption might not always have the highest priority.

ITIL states that you should determine priority by multiplying impact x urgency. Impact: how many people are bothered by the disruption; Urgency: how quick should it be solved. Maybe you can rewrite your priority by thinking about impact and urgency first.

The following example is far more general than yours, yet is (I think) more bus. oriented whilst your own is more tech/system oriented. For instance:
Impact: (from big to small)
Medical (=exception: could be only 1 person, yet it this is a patient whose health is endangered, it would still have a big impact)
Businesswide
Departmentwide
Individual

Urgency:
High: danger to health of patient(s) and/or possible negative press-attention
Normal: disturbs regular process, yet no danger to patients health.
Low: mainly used for questions as opposed to disruptions etc.

Hope this helps

[Aynsley]

Hello,

Im re-thinking some stuff after your last post. Watch this space for plan B I see where you are coming from.

Aynsley

[m_croon]

Hi Aynsley,

How about your plan B?

[ChipPanFat]

I would take the following as categorisations:

Healthcare
Infrastructure
Data & Security
Planning

Then base the priority on this:

Business or User Critical
Business or User Standard

and have a default priority based upon the category, for example, the category Healthcare would give the default priority Critical but with the flexibility to change it on certain exceptions.