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Task Management Survey
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the members of the Customer Service Advisory Council for taking the time to provide responses to the questions recently posed regarding the closing of Aged Tasks. Tasks are an essential tool used in the communication mode between you our customers, as well as internal MEDITECH Staff regarding on going issues, and eventually provides a historical record of the issue. As such, MEDITECH has established Task Standards for our staff. The goal of these standards is to promote greater customer service through more efficient task processing. Periodically, the standards are reviewed and checked for updates. Your feedback has helped us in the recent review process, and your suggestions and ideas used to enhance our internal procedures.
Below each question we have outlined the general overall feedback we received from the Customer Service Advisory Council Members, as well as MEDITECH's action plan. I would like to encourage all of MEDITECHs customers to feel free to provide their comments on this subject.
1. Would you want to receive e-mail notifications when we close these tasks?
Advisory Council Responses:
The overall response is that you wish to receive e-mail notification when MEDITECH closes a task.
Action:
Tasks will be mailed to a customer when there is a true update to an issue by either the Programmer/Analyst or Applications Specialist.
2. Should we consult with you or your staff on any task we want to close?
Advisory Council Responses:
All agreed that tasks could be closed but that mutual agreement must be established. In addition, an alternative to closed tasks would be helpful.
Action:
If no recurrence of the original problem is reported in 45 days and all attempts have failed to reproduce the issue, the customer will be contacted to discuss closing the task. Once mutual agreement has been established the task will be closed. This agreement will be documented in the task. In addition a new task status has been established to assist customers in tracking an issue. Please see the SITE TRACKING status noted below.
3. Should our sites have first option to Close or keep Open any of these "old tasks"?
Advisory Council Responses:
All are comfortable with either closing the task themselves or making an entry in the task requesting the MEDITECH specialist close the issue. Again the important thing is that both MEDITECH and the site are in agreement that the issue can be completed.
Action:
Mutual agreement between MEDITECH and the customer should be reached prior to completing the task.
4. Do you see a problem with tasks for all applications being addressed at
the same time?
Advisory Council Responses:
While some of you had no opinion on this question, others felt it was important to obtain input from the core team leaders on site as to their needs.
Action:
As part of our continuing effort to maintain Service Excellence we would like to provide some additional focus on "Aged Tasks".
Throughout the year, MEDITECH's application staff members will be running events such as:
Completionfests:
These challenges run anywhere from 6 to 10 weeks. The goal is to clean up the backlog of tasks awaiting customer response (at H - Customer and TE - Test statuses). A realistic percentage drop goal is set at the beginning of the challenge.
TaskNet:
TaskNet is a meeting of the minds. Collectively as a group, older issues are presented, discussed and resolved.
Dust Bunnies:
This is an event that runs anywhere from 8 to 10 weeks. The goal of this event is to close out 100% of all incomplete tasks greater than 180 number of days old
MEDITECH has task statuses that will help us and our customers manage issues. The following is the list of statuses as well as a brief description of each:
C - Complete
The issue is fully resolved.
The question reported by the customer no longer requires investigation .
CH - Change Control
Helps prioritize tasks for the customer so they are aware approval is needed to
move important changes into their directory.
D - Development
Only used when a DTS has been submitted to Development.
H - Customer (formerly Hospital)
MEDITECH is waiting for information from the customer
HO - Hold
Mutual agreement has been reached between the customer and MEDITECH that the task is not being actively worked on for a period of time.
I - In-house
Changes have been moved to the customer's in-house ring and have been fully tested.
IS - IS Staff
For customers use where MEDITECH involvement is not necessary or desired, however, the customer is going to use our AMS system to document an issue.
O - Open
MEDITECH is actively working on the issue.
TA - Tape
Once changes for a customer have been put on tape.
Tape is en route to customer site.
TE - Test
Software has been loaded into a customer's test system. A task will remain in this status until the update and/or changes are moved LIVE.
F-Future Update
When an associated DTS will be included in a future update/service release.
ST-Site Tracking
Issue is considered complete on the MEDITECH side but continues to be monitored/tracked by the customer. For example, a site may be plan to reboot a server in a particular week or month.
Thank you again for your interest and responses. I look forward to posing questions in the future and requesting your feedback, suggestions and opinions, all in an effort to maintain Service Excellence.
Sincerely:
Phil Raffa
Director
Client Services
MEDITECH