When you manage a software development firm you are often asked which department costs you the most. Varied answers are available debating amongst “Development” and “Sales / Marketing”, but my experience teaches me that it is “Support”.
The people, policies and technology are often quite difficult to manage leading to increased “Support Calls”. The human nature asks for external as well as internal support within an organization.
Support Systems are often categorized by the nature in which they were developed.
Managing support requires:
- People
- Structure
- Ticketing System
- Knowledge Base
- Live Chat
- Documentation
Areas that need proper controlled forces are:
- Monitoring Frequently Asked Questions
- Educating Support Staff on the latest development advancements
- Managing Support Staff Ratings
- Maintaining appropriate backup staff for the areas of expertise
- Periodic Staff Evaluation on performances
Support ticketing trends / reports are measured using three main criterias:
- Average Response Time to address a ticket
- Nature of the support call
- Frequency of the support call
Support systems are formally designed a three tier architecture. The tier three support being the most complex and the tier one support being the comparatively simpler questions.
Any organization either big or small usually needs a support system and a dedicated department to answer the clients questions.
Many a times I have been asked why Quick Growth is “Harmful”. Organizations have a growth curve. If they grow too quickly without appropriate planning it causes a harmful reaction.
It affects:
- The Company
- The Customers
- The Employees
- The Environment
Proper planning, Knowledge Transfer and Resource Management are extremely important in maintaining stability in the company. Management must take the required steps to educate the clients and its employees about its future plans.
People, Policies and Technologies are often too complicated to bring together in Sync. The management has to think outside the box to co-ordinate their efforts.
Spam control is one of my most challenging battlefields. I, receive an average of 40,300 emails every month from the internet.
In the last 3 months I received a total of 1,20,900 emails.
45,000 of these are delivered, meaning that 75,900 of these are Spam.
This translates into 3,03,600 Spams per year.
I use SPAM ASSASSIN
(#1 Open-Source Spam Filter) to identify spam using a wide range of heuristic tests on mail headers and body text.
There’s nothing wrong with having standards, is there?
No, as long as you don’t force them on others.
We work in an (healthcare) industry where we can harm our clients (patients) through medical errors and still charge them for our own mistakes.
Questions that need answers:
Who will take the ownership of Standards Deployment?
Is the EMR Adoption going to be a reality?
Is there a HIPAA Version 2.0?
Published on November 11, 2007
in Life and Travel.
November 9 2007: Myself and Avni, we went to the Saratoga Gaming and Raceway center in Saratoga Albany,NY. It was quite interesting to see the Horse Carriage Racing. There were folks betting on horses, gambling in the casino… the sight was magnificent; it was classic.
http://www.saratogaraceway.com/
If a doctor is participating in a quality measurement initiative and is only submitting “Aggregate Patient Information” to the quality measure unit, does the doctor need to take CONSENT from the patient that the patients information will be used in “Aggregate Data Collection”?
PatientPrivacyRights.Org (Deborah Peel, MD) says:
There should be no “secondary uses” or any uses of our personal health information without contemporaneous, informed consent.
Technically, HIPAA does not require consent for aggregate information sharing. Also, quality measurement is part of treatment/payment/operations, so it is exempt anyway. However, beyond HIPAA is the perception of the patient and community that their data is being shared.
Time Magazine has a list of the best inventions for the year 2007.
Click this link to read more
The areas where the inventions are being concentrated are:
* Applying solar energy to conservative use
* Building eco-friendly cars
* Using nano-technology
* Video Gaming, Mobile Technology and Space Technology (Rocket Science)
* Architecture Mobilization
The categories include:
* Cars and Buses
* Aircraft
* Space
* Robots
* Entertainment
* Law and Order
* Living
* Environment
* Architecture
* Fashion
* Computers
* Health
It sure is an interesting age to live in!
Here are some interesting facts from an interesting article I read in the Science Daily on the US Health Care System:
* U.S. spends more than double what other countries spend for medical care–$6,697 per capita in 2005
* U.S. patients are more likely to report experiencing medical errors
* The study, published recently in the journal Health Affairs, finds that U.S. adults also have the highest out-of-pocket costs and greatest problems paying medical bills.
* U.S. adults are most likely to have gone without care because of high out-of-pocket costs.
Source: Commonwealth Fund (2007, November 4). One-third Of US Adults Call For Completely Rebuilding Health Care System. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 2, 2007, from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2007/11/071101084956.htm
Considering all the efforts put by various health care organizations including (HITSP,ASTM,CCHIT) I believe that these numbers will change and there will be a positive upward moving trend in the health care industry.
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