UAMS' Information Technology (IT) mission is to provide a coherent, highly functional,  cost-effective and customer service-oriented IT environment. It is UAMS' expectation that IT will strengthen the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the delivery of education, patient care and research.   Clinical Information Systems (CIS) supports that mission with the goal of improving customer satisfaction and increasing network and system stability across campus.  Our standards are:  Excellence of Service; Professionalism (at all times); Confidentiality; and Respect for Others.

Clinical Information Systems (CIS) services include:

1.        24-hour Computer Help Desk

2.        Computer hardware and software support

3.        Project management and implementation

4.        Analysis, interface and programming

5.        Database management

6.        Network management

7.        Information Technology Security

8.        Systems and equipment service and maintenance

9.        Data center file server management

10.      Information systems consulting

Projects (network expansion, rewiring, consulting, new systems, enhancements and fixes to application programs) may be requested by completing the Project Request Form on the CIS Web page http://intranet.uams.edu/cis/cisproject

Problem support is available by placing a call to the CIS Help Desk (686-8555).  Each problem is assigned a unique # which will be given to the user prior to ending the call and can be used for tracking call status online.

Normal CIS call response guidelines and standards: 

1.  Support is available 24 hours and 7 days a week either on-site or on-call. CIS Standard Business hours for on-site support are 7a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday. Standard Business hours for on-call support are 6 p.m. to 7 a.m., Monday through Friday. UAMS Holidays and weekends are considered on-call hours.

2.   Calls are categorized as critical or non-critical. Critical devices or user situations will have priority over non-critical.

3.   Critical calls are defined as problems affecting multiple users, patient care delivery or time-critical projects. Critical issues must be phoned to the Help Desk and designated as critical.

4.   Critical calls during on-site hours will be contacted by phone within 15 minutes, with at location assistance within 1 hour, 90 percent of the time.

5.    Critical calls during on-call hours will be contacted by phone within 15 minutes, with at location assistance within 2 hours, 90 percent of the time.

6.   Non-Critical calls during on-site hours will be contacted by phone within 6 hours, with at location assistance within 16 business hours, 90 percent of the time.

7.   Non-Critical calls during on-call hours will be contacted next Standard Business day, with at location assistance within 16 business hours, 90 percent of the time.

8.    All Help Desk Callers must provide: Name, location, phone number, problem reporting, computer tag number, operating system and PC name (if available) to facilitate call response.

9.   Help Desk consultants will assign calls from scripts (documentation that details the assignment of the call), provided by departmental managers/directors. All phone calls and E-mail will be answered in the order in which they were received. All efforts are made to answer calls in less than one minute with a maximum of 3-5 minutes, 90 percent of the time and E-mail is processed within 60 minutes, 90 percent of the time.

  These response times represent maximums. Normal response time is typically less.  Many factors can affect established goals and response times. Catastrophic outages can overwhelm the Help Desk and support staff with calls that impact normal responsiveness. Such outages also impact CIS’ ability to meet the goals established in this document. Such occasions may be addressed and handled through escalation procedures detailed on the CIS web pages.

CIS Service Philosophy:

CIS prints monthly reports detailing the number of calls per area and can, on an as-requested basis, do adhoc reporting by area to detail types of calls and information on repeat visits.

Home PC's or PC’s not in UAMS supported offices running UAMS software will be supported if the PC is brought into the CIS workstation support area.  Home visits are not possible due to state regulations. Hardware problems will be identified and are the responsibility of the owner.

CIS requests that customers use discretion when stating call priority and when requesting off-hour resources. If another computer or a work-around can be used for problems, please do not report as critical. This is most important during on-call hours.  

CIS' goal for systems uptime is 99.9%. While this number is consistently hit, unplanned outages do occur. Unplanned outages to the Network Infrastructure, Enterprise Systems or Departmental Systems supported by CIS will be reported to the Help Desk Message Board as soon as discovered. The Message Board will then be updated with an estimate of outage duration as soon as the problem has been identified.

Planned outages are typically scheduled for the 3^rd Sunday of each month as needed. All planned outages are scheduled on the Event Calendar (in Outlook calendar view select “File_Open_Other User’s Folder” and type “Information Systems”) and notifications are sent prior to the scheduled work.

Backup and restore services, with off-site storage, are offered for servers located in the Computer Room. Within call response parameters defined above, CIS will immediately request the offsite backup tape (if necessary) and will begin the restore as soon as the tape is available (Note: If the tape is not offsite, the restore begins immediately). Average off-site retrieval time is one hour.

Monitoring/problem reporting is done on all CIS supported servers.  A report is compiled and sent to the owner of the resource as soon as a negative trend or potential problem is identified.  Measures that need to be taken are noted in the problem report.

CIS maintains a spare hardware pool (PC's, monitors, printers, etc.) Equipment sent out for maintenance is eligible for replacement loans from the spare pool if the need is critical and equipment is available.

CIS is committed to on-going personnel training as-needed to support standard UAMS software packages.  Technicians are expected to be reasonably proficient on Microsoft Office and Microsoft operating systems.  Other systems will be supported on a “best-effort” basis.   

Divisions or departments will budget for and provide funding for purchase of new hardware, PC upgrades, software maintenance contracts on hardware and software, and any additional maintenance expenses that may be incurred over and above contracts. Only properly licensed software will be installed on UAMS workstations. If you need assistance in purchasing software or have questions regarding licenses, please call the Help Desk. All computer PC’s & Printers purchased should have an extended maintenance contract.  CIS will provide maintenance contract support to facilitate communication with vendors and expedite problem resolution.

CIS maintains a Web page available under "Information Technology" on the UAMS home page http://www.uams.edu/CIS/ that explains our mission, organizational structure, standards for equipment and software, support standards, problem escalation procedures, and an active Help Desk call status lookup utility. If you have any questions please call CIS at 686-5700.

Access to UAMS electronic services is governed by UAMS IT Policies.
All users of these services are required to inform themselves of and abide by these policies.