calculation

Information Communication Technologies

MORE resources on system Updates, and calculating Uptime or downtime

OK, we really cover a lot of territory this week. First, some resources on the need for software updating , but also its pitfalls to the health care workers and organization:

http://quotient.net/planning-for-software-maintenance-how-to-prevent-old-software/

and

https://www.healthit.gov/unintended-consequences/content/example-8-user-frustration-frequent-ehr-updates.html

These two articles provide the two extremes about updating: if we never update our software, pretty soon we will have an unworkable dinosaur on our hands. On the other hand, if we update too often then the users/ practitioners using the system get confused as the forms and ways to use it are changing too quickly.

What to do? Well, Plan for updates, but not too often. Make sure that staff are sufficiently trained on any critical system components that may change.  Perhaps no more than twice a year should we "apply" updates, unless of course for those critical security patches and updates that are required for our safety.  On that topic needing updates to insure data security, here is one last link though it has a lot of ads: http://www.informationweek.com/healthcare/security-and-privacy/shellshock-and-why-ehrs-need-updating/a/d-id/1316818

Don't write about information security, though--which isn't the main "topic of the week". Maintaining our system and training on it, are!

Now for computing uptime that so many of you find challenging:

Let's understand what we are doing and why. You want to remember this "process" instead of memorizing a formula that might not be the right one to apply.

What is UPTIME? It is the percent of time the System is working, during the week (month, year, whatever time frame).Whatever is NOT uptime, is called DOWNTIME.   What that means is that always, UPTIME + DOWNTIME = 100% OF All the TIME.  It's like making change from one dollar; if we spent 89 percent on uptime, then we've got 11 percent left over as downtime. Yippee!

Next, we've got some things in life that just don't change.  Time is one of those. WE all have the same number of hours in a day (24) , and always the same number of hours in a week (7).  This is great, and thanks to Einstein and the Universe, we don't have to worry about getting different hours each week (except ignore please, daylight savings time changes). Do NOT use "52 weeks in a year" though. That isn't actually true.  There are actually 52.1429 weeks in a year, hah!  You would go down the wrong garden path if you assumed 52 weeks in a year, though you would be "close".

Now what?  Well, if I am told that we had 5 hours of downtime last week, so compute our uptime percentage, the brain can start rolling. 

How many hours in a week? 24 hours/day x 7 days/week = 168 hours in a week.  Always.  But we were "down" 5 hours.  We had 5 hours Downtime x 100% / (168 total hours in the week) = downtime percentage.   And the uptime percentage is simply, (168 weeklyhours - 5 hours down) * 100% / (168 hours in a week) = uptime percentage.   Try both those calculations. Keep doing it in your calculator until you are sure you can get uptime and downtime to add up to 100% on that one problem. If it doesn't, you are inputting the data wrong.

 Uptime's final formula is, Percentageweekly Uptime = (#weeklyhours system is Up x 100%)/ total #hours in a week. Hopefully by this point you understand why that is so!