The healthcare industry is subject to many types of existing and new cybersecurity threats. With technology constantly developing and information considered to be highly valuable, cyber criminals see this industry as a gold mine of sorts. Crime can also occur internally, with employees playing the part of "bad actor."
Internal knowledge bases are internal libraries for all of your organization's processes, information that employees need, and steps that front-line staff should take when helping customers.
IT Service Management (ITSM) teams use internal knowledge base systems, as these contain the daily guidelines that IT staff use to support colleagues and customers.
As the pace of innovation accelerates, companies must keep up with the latest trends to remain competitive. This, in turn, places a significant burden on the IT department to manage and maintain the technological infrastructure and to identify and implement new technologies. As a result, IT professionals are under mounting pressure to deliver high-quality services in a timely and cost-effective manner, all while ensuring the security and reliability of critical systems.
Digital assets play such an essential role in the functioning of businesses, organizations, and governments worldwide. Think about everything you manage during your day-to-day working life. How much of what you're working with is digital or physical?
Chances are, most "assets" you work with, whether emails, documents, spreadsheets, software, and other files, are digital. Hence the importance of Digital Asset Management (DAM).
In IT Service Management (ITSM), and according to ITIL® practices, a Request for Change (RFC) is a formal, budgeted request to implement changes.
In most cases, an RFC is outside of any standard, minor-level changes. RFCs are part of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) Change Management processes, as defined in previous iterations of the ITIL framework and the current one, ITIL v4.
In today's increasingly digitized world, the HIPAA Security Rule in healthcare has become vital in safeguarding patient data from unauthorized access or theft. Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), healthcare providers and covered entities must establish safeguards that guarantee the confidentiality, accuracy, and accessibility of electronic health information about their patients (ePHI). These standards protect ePHI from physical and virtual threats like malware, hacking, and unauthorized access. In addition to ensuring compliance with HIPAA regulations, adhering to the Security Rule can help providers protect their patients' privacy and maintain their trust. Neglecting to comply with these requirements could lead to severe monetary fines and harm a healthcare provider's reputation.
Change Management is a constant for ITIL and ITSM. Changes are often necessary, whether software or hardware roll-outs or systems upgrades. Regrettably, as every IT professional and team leader knows, mistakes can happen.
Not every change management plan goes smoothly, and when you hit bumps in the road, you need control of the complete end-to-end process. Part of ensuring you have that control is to have contingencies in place for rolling back some of the changes that have been made.
In the world of IT service, swarming is a fancy way of saying "let's get the right people together to fix this issue." Intelligent Swarming, as it is sometimes called, is a customer service strategy that involves a collaborative effort among support agents and experts from different teams within an organization to solve complex service cases or major incidents. The idea behind the swarm theory is that when people work together in real-time, they can share their knowledge and ideas more effectively, which can help them solve the problem faster than if each person were working on their own. Think of it like a brainstorming session, but with a specific goal and a sense of urgency.
Every IT and ITSM (IT Service Management) leader must closely monitor Service Level Agreement (SLA) performance metrics.
SLA metrics are a measurable way of demonstrating that your team or department is hitting or missing key performance indicators (KPIs) within an SLA.
In most organizations, there's an extensive "shadow IT" network, also known as a shadow IT system.
In every mid-size and large organization, there's usually an extensive interconnected network of approved software solutions and systems. In some cases, these software or hardware solutions are proprietary and have been developed exclusively for that organization.
However, since the turn of the century, there has been rapid proliferation of cloud-based software, hardware, apps, and other systems that organizations are now using. Businesses are often spending anywhere from tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on software, hardware, and IT vendors and IT Service Management (ITSM) partners.
