Health Information Solutions Centre Service Desk

The Service Desk supports health care staff to make effective use of the provincial health information network and its technologies, services and systems.

Users of the Service Desk are provided with tier-one help desk assistance on all their computer problem calls. In addition, the Service Desk provides support for all clinical information systems hosted in the Data Centre.

As of March 31, 2007, 15,656 health care staff (of a potential 38,000 across the provincial health sector) had access to the Service Desk. This reflects an increase of over 20 per cent or 3,140 users over March 31, 2006.

All health regions, as well as the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan, the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency, the Department of Family Medicine at the College of Medicine, the Saskatchewan Registered Nurses' Association and the Saskatchewan Association of Health Organizations (SAHO) are utilizing this service.

Of the over 72,500 calls received by the Service Desk in 2006-07, less than 27,000 had to be dealt with by regional technical resources. This reduced the demand on limited resources in the health sector. Support Services staff directly resolved over 60 per cent of the calls.

In 2006-07, monthly surveys of Service Desk system users found that 97.7 per cent of respondents rated the service provided by the Service Desk as satisfactory or better, with more than 66 per cent indicating they received exceptional service. The number of responses to the survey increased 18.3 per cent from 2005-06.

Service Desk support operates between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. weekdays and on-call support for clinical systems hosted in the Data Centre is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In 2007-08 the Service Desk will move toward 24/7 service delivery and provide service to the Ministry of Health.