A new downtime preparedness program usually starts with enthusiasm and a long list of things the organization wants to accomplish. Cover every department. Train every employee. Test every scenario. Reduce recovery time dramatically. By the end of the first year, the list is only partly complete, leadership wonders whether the investment delivered, and the team is tired.
The problem is rarely effort. It is goal setting. First-year goals that are realistic, sequenced, and measurable build momentum. First-year goals that are sweeping and vague create a sense of failure even when real progress was made.
This guide lays out how to set goals that fit what a first year can actually deliver.
Principles for First-Year Goals
- Coverage before perfection. Protect the highest-risk workflows first, then widen coverage.
- Baseline before targets. You cannot set a meaningful target for activation time or reconciliation speed until you have measured the current state.
- Few goals, each with one owner. Five well-owned goals outperform fifteen shared ones.
- Verifiable outcomes. Each goal should be something you can confirm with evidence, such as a drill result or a completed deployment.
- Room for what you learn. The first drill will reveal surprises. Leave capacity to address them.
Quarter 1: Baseline and Foundation
The first quarter is about understanding where you stand and putting structure in place.
- Complete a baseline assessment, either an internal audit or a Downtime Audit Assessment
- Name an IT program owner and a clinical co-owner
- Decide which departments receive workstations first, using the framework in our post on prioritizing downtime workstations
- Begin the HL7 integration with your EHR
- Draft the core forms list for registration, consent, and the highest-priority clinical documentation
Quarter 2: Go-Live and Orientation
- Workstations live in the priority departments, with the HL7 feed verified as current
- Core eForms built, reviewed by clinical owners, and loaded
- Department downtime leads named, with procedure cards posted at each workstation
- Initial training completed for permanent staff in priority departments
- Downtime orientation added to new hire and agency staff onboarding
At the published tier pricing, a starting deployment of 3 to 5 stations is $299 per station per month, which is a manageable first commitment. See the pricing page for current details.
Quarter 3: Practice and Measure
- Use a planned maintenance window as a structured exercise, following the approach in our post on turning planned windows into preparedness assets
- Assign observers and record activation time by department
- Track how many workflows were completed electronically versus defaulting to paper
- Walk through the reconciliation process with real data and time it
- Produce a gap list and begin fixing the top items, including forms updates
This quarter produces the first real numbers. They become the baseline for year two targets.
Quarter 4: Consolidate and Plan
- Run a second exercise that specifically tests whether Quarter 3 fixes worked
- Report results to executive leadership using clear metrics
- Review the forms library and decide whether ongoing maintenance will be internal or through Managed eForms
- Decide whether to expand to additional departments, which may move the deployment into the next pricing tier
- Submit the year two plan and budget through your annual planning cycle
Realistic and Unrealistic Goals
Examples of goals that tend to cause trouble in year one:
- Train 100 percent of staff in 90 days, which ignores shift patterns, turnover, and agency staffing
- Find no gaps in the first drill, which treats discovery as failure
- Cover the entire facility immediately, which stretches IT, training, and budget
- Cut reconciliation time by a specific percentage before you have measured the current time
Examples of goals that tend to work:
- Workstations live and verified in the five highest-priority departments by the end of Q2
- Every priority department completes a full workflow in the Q3 exercise, with activation time measured
- Downtime orientation is part of onboarding for every new hire and agency staff member by Q3
- A clinical co-owner is named and attends the program review each quarter
- A gap list from the Q3 exercise has an owner and deadline for each item by the end of Q3
What to Report to Leadership
Keep the report short and repeatable:
- Departments covered and departments planned
- Activation times from exercises, with trend over time
- Share of staff oriented, with a note on agency staff
- Gaps found, gaps fixed, and gaps still open
- Next quarter’s commitments
Over time, the same report becomes the evidence for the improvement curve described in our post on what a mature program looks like.
What to Defer to Year Two
Some good ideas are better postponed: full facility coverage in large systems, joint cyber and downtime exercises, advanced analytics, and expansion to affiliated practices. A first year that does fewer things well sets up a stronger second year than one that tries everything and finishes none of it.
To build a first-year roadmap tailored to your facilities, request a demo or contact our team.