PF05 - Expected response times

Description of the control

Document the response times to be expected from the PST under both best- and worst-case conditions.

What this control corresponds to

Provide a realistic range of response times (e.g. opening a patient record, saving a clinical note) under both optimal and degraded conditions, setting clear, measurable expectations instead of a vague promise of "speed."

Why this control is important

A PST’s response times have a direct clinical impact: a health professional waiting on a patient record during a consultation or an urgent intervention loses precious time. Documenting worst cases lets the acquirer assess whether the PST stays usable even under load or network degradation.

How to implement it

• Define the critical operations to measure (login, opening a record, saving, searching).
• Measure response time under nominal load (best case) and under high load/latency (representative worst case, e.g. a remote region as characterized in PF02).
• Publish these times in the technical documentation submitted to the Certification Office and, ideally, in the deployment guide provided to facilities.

How to verify it’s in place

• Request the measurement results for each identified critical operation.
• Verify the "worst-case conditions" tested match plausible scenarios for the health and social services network, not just an artificially favourable case.
• Confirm these times are continuously monitored once in production.