What a Real IT Support SLA Looks Like for a Healthcare Practice

Vague promises are not SLAs

A service level agreement should do two things: set clear expectations and give you a way to verify them. Vague language like prompt response is not an SLA. A real one defines priority levels, target response and resolution times for each, hours of coverage, and how performance is reported. For a healthcare practice, the critical questions are how fast someone responds when the EHR is down and whether that coverage includes clinic hours and on-call after hours.

Tiered priorities and honest reporting

Look for tiered priorities. A P1 outage that blocks patient care should have a response target measured in minutes, while a routine request can be hours or next day. Make sure the contract distinguishes response, someone is working on it, from resolution, it is fixed, because those are easy to confuse. Require monthly reporting that shows actual performance against the targets, not just averages.

Escalation when it matters

Finally, check the escalation path. When a ticket is stuck, who picks it up, and how fast? A good SLA is not just a promise on paper. It is a system that makes the promise visible and enforceable. See how our managed IT services model defines these for practices.

What to do next

Ask any current or prospective provider for a sample monthly SLA report. If they cannot produce one, that tells you what the real service looks like.

• Demand specific response and resolution targets by priority
• Separate response from resolution and require real reporting
• Confirm an escalation path for stuck tickets