Healthcare Uptime Monitoring

Healthcare downtime can delay patient care. Monitor patient portals, telehealth platforms, and healthcare APIs to ensure your systems are available when patients and providers need them.

In healthcare, system availability directly impacts patient care. When a patient portal is down, patients can't access test results, schedule appointments, or message their providers. When telehealth systems fail, appointments are missed and care is delayed.

What to monitor in healthcare

Patient portals

Patient portals are often the primary digital touchpoint with patients. Monitor login pages, appointment scheduling, messaging systems, and test result access. Patients expect 24/7 availability.

Telehealth platforms

Virtual visits have become essential to healthcare delivery. Monitor video consultation endpoints, waiting rooms, and scheduling systems. A failed telehealth session means a missed appointment.

Appointment scheduling

Online scheduling reduces call center load and improves patient satisfaction. Monitor booking flows, calendar integrations, and confirmation systems.

EHR integrations

Patient-facing applications often integrate with Electronic Health Record systems. Monitor API endpoints and data sync processes to catch integration failures early.

Prescription and pharmacy services

E-prescribing and pharmacy integration systems are critical for medication access. Monitor prescription submission endpoints and pharmacy lookup services.

Healthcare monitoring best practices

External monitoring approach

UpDog performs external HTTP monitoring—checking if URLs respond correctly. This approach doesn't require access to internal systems or protected health information. You monitor the same endpoints patients access.

Prioritize patient-facing systems

Start with what patients use most: login pages, appointment booking, and critical information access. Use faster check intervals (1 minute) for these endpoints.

Monitor authentication flows

Healthcare portals often use complex authentication (MFA, SSO). Monitor login pages and verify they load correctly. Authentication failures are a common cause of patient complaints.

Set up appropriate escalation

Patient-facing system outages may need immediate attention. Configure alerts to reach on-call staff quickly through multiple channels (Slack, SMS, PagerDuty).

Use status pages for transparency

A public status page lets patients and staff check system status during issues, reducing support calls and building trust through transparency.

Compliance considerations

External uptime monitoring like UpDog checks publicly accessible endpoints (login pages, API health checks) without accessing protected health information (PHI). The monitoring service sees:

  • Whether a URL responds
  • HTTP status codes
  • Response times
  • Whether expected content appears on the page

This is equivalent to a patient checking if your website loads—no PHI is accessed, processed, or stored by the monitoring service.

For internal systems containing PHI, work with your compliance team on appropriate monitoring approaches that align with your security policies.

FAQ

External uptime monitoring checks publicly accessible endpoints without accessing PHI. UpDog monitors URLs and response codes—it doesn't access, store, or process protected health information.

Prioritize patient-facing systems: patient portals, telehealth platforms, appointment booking, and prescription services. Also monitor critical APIs and integrations that support clinical workflows.

For critical patient-facing systems, use 1-minute check intervals. For administrative systems, 5-minute intervals may be sufficient.

Related resources

Monitor your healthcare systems

Ensure patient-facing services stay available. External monitoring without PHI access.

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  • 1-minute check intervals
  • SSL certificate monitoring
  • Status pages included
  • PagerDuty integration