Five Questions to Ask IT Support Partners to Overcome Staffing Shortages

Healthcare IT leaders are under growing pressure to allocate resources effectively, as rapidly evolving technology requirements collide with a constrained, highly competitive talent market. As healthcare organizations expand investments in areas such as AI, cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, and interoperability, the volume and complexity of IT responsibilities have increased significantly, often outpacing the growth of internal teams. This imbalance is forcing difficult trade-offs between maintaining day-to-day support operations and advancing strategic initiatives.

As a result, many health IT leaders are turning to external service partners to supplement internal capabilities, maintain operational stability, and secure flexible, skilled talent. These partnerships can help alleviate workload strain and improve system performance, enabling internal teams to focus on higher-value strategic priorities. However, as reliance on external support grows, healthcare organizations must ensure vendor staff meet or exceed the stringent qualifications expected from their internal IT team.

When evaluating an IT support partner, healthcare organizations should ask the following five questions to assess the quality of their staff resources:

Ask IT support vendors five quality check questions

Question 1: What comparable projects have you completed?

Don’t settle for a basic client list with simple project descriptions. Ask for examples of similar projects at similar healthcare organizations (e.g., other academic medical centers) within the recent past (e.g., the past five years). A vendor who takes the initiative will provide client organization names, timeframes, locations, reference lists, and scopes that include:

• The number of resources, systems, and applications covered;
• Specific project hallmarks; and
• Proof points that demonstrate projects completed on time and on budget.

Furthermore, a quality vendor should be able to back up this information with reference sheets or case studies.

Question 2: What are the qualifications of your proposed staff resources?

Watch out for IT staffing vendors that provide simple, generic write-ups of their resources that sound similar across the board. Be wary, too, of vendors that offer blind résumés and can’t clarify how long analysts have been with their firm. To be sure about staffing practices and avoid any potential bait-and-switch tactics, ask for details about any subcontractors and the costs associated throughout the project.

Well-respected vendors will not only give you the proposed IT team roster for each IT system and/or application being supported, but they will also provide explicit analysts’ résumés denoting contributions to at least three comparable hospital or health system projects, along with a qualifications summary overview per resource — including specialties and EHR system certifications.

Depending on the size and scope of the proposed project, truly solid vendors will even share a team organizational chart including analysts, roles, reporting hierarchy, group or department segments, and coordination with internal health system teams. The chart should show how IT staff resources flow up to respective project managers and overall vendor firm account and executive management. Such specifics illustrate a vendor’s commitment and a broad understanding of how its team’s capabilities align with your organization’s culture and project needs.

Question 3: What resources do you require of your health system clients for a successful engagement?

Be on alert for limited, single-paragraph responses to this question. Good IT support vendors will take the opportunity to describe their due diligence and onboarding processes. The more explanation, the better. Hospitals and health systems should look for vendors to address:

• The meetings and correspondence likely to be necessary throughout the project (including frequency, reports/tasks to be covered in each, and who should attend from both the health system’s team and the vendor’s team);
• Onboarding and transition documentation, timelines, and the individuals/roles who must be involved;
• Internal escalation points and contacts; and
• Any remaining questions or clarifications as needed.

This level of detail shows both the vendor’s project expertise and their dedication to your project’s success.

Question 4: Given your experience with similar projects, what do you believe are our potential project risks?

Ideally, a vendor should be able to provide at least three in-depth examples from firsthand experiences. The examples should not only identify the risks but also clarify their potential scope by discussing the departments and systems they impact — and to what extent.

A genuine partner vendor will take its response even further by expressing how it plans to coordinate with you to identify, review, and solve such risks throughout the engagement’s lifespan.

Question 5: If concerns arise with the project or a proposed resource, what is your procedure for escalating them?

While a concern-free engagement is everyone’s desire, a pragmatic approach to issue resolution is essential.

A thorough vendor will designate issue-level labels in terms of impact, along with descriptions. They will also demonstrate their understanding of your organization by communicating how their escalation process aligns with your existing escalation processes.

At a minimum, look for a vendor to respond to this question by covering four core components of the escalation process:

1. Submission: The vendor should define the entry point to the escalation process and what that entails.
2. Acknowledgment: The vendor should explain how an escalated issue is received and acknowledged.
3. Resolution: The vendor should describe the staff involved in the resolution and the steps taken to mitigate and remediate an issue.
4. Communication: The vendor should provide details about how information is disseminated to health system users, leadership, and project teams throughout the escalation process.

Ease healthcare IT staffing challenges

As healthcare organizations navigate increasingly complex technology and ongoing resource constraints, securing qualified IT talent has become a critical priority. Partnering with experienced healthcare IT providers helps improve system performance and advance key initiatives without sacrificing day-to-day operations or efficiency. By asking IT vendors the right questions and selecting partners with proven expertise, healthcare organizations can gain support resources that help sustain both immediate demands and long-term organizational growth.

Need help finding a reliable healthcare IT support partner? Med Tech Solutions has you covered. Contact us to learn more.