--- sourceDocument: Australia Healthcare and Life Sciences sourceDocumentLink: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/australia/healthcare-life-sciences Release : - australia ft:locale : - en-US ft:publication_title : - Australia Healthcare and Life Sciences ft:clusterId : - hcls bundleId : - hcls workflow : - Customer and Industry --- # Setting up healthcare locations and healthcare organizations # Setting up healthcare locations and healthcare organizations {#ariaid-title1} Release version: Australia Updated July 24, 2026 ![](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/portal-asset/ico-clock) 5 minutes to read Summarize ![AI sparkle icon](https://servicenow.com/docs/portal-asset/ai-sparkle-icon) Summarized using AI This content was generated using new OpenAI-powered functionality. Results are provided on an as is basis and are not guaranteed to be accurate or complete. ## Summary of Setting up healthcare locations and healthcare organizations This content explains how to effectively organize healthcare locations and healthcare organizations within ServiceNow to support care teams and their operational environments. Proper structuring enables accurate representation of physical and virtual care sites and their governing organizations, which is essential for operational clarity, access control, and routing of responsibilities. Show full answer Show less ## Healthcare Organizations The **Healthcare Organization \[snhclsorganization\]** table captures healthcare organization details in ServiceNow. It uses a hierarchical model (e.g., HQ → Hospital → Department → Unit) defined by the **Parent Organization** field, which is critical for enforcing visibility, responsibility, and routing within healthcare networks. Each healthcare organization record is linked bidirectionally to a corresponding **Business Organization** record, which extends core organizational data with healthcare-specific attributes like organization type. Key related lists for healthcare organizations include: * **Child Organizations:** Manage hierarchical sub-organizations. * **Members:** Manage personnel and their responsibilities. * **Healthcare Locations:** Link physical or virtual care sites to the organization. * **Assignment Groups, Available Services, Customer Criteria:** Manage operational and service delivery aspects. ## Healthcare Locations The **Healthcare Location \[snhclslocation\]** table represents the physical or virtual sites where care and operations occur (e.g., campus, building, unit, room). Locations are organized hierarchically (e.g., Campus → Hospital Building → Unit → Room) to enable precise identification of where work or issues arise. Healthcare locations extend the common location data model (**cmnlocation** ), allowing healthcare-specific attributes such as altitude. The **Parent Location** field supports multi-level hierarchies, and when accessed from the Healthcare Operations Core app, users can navigate up to three levels of location hierarchy for context. ## Association Between Healthcare Organizations and Locations The **Healthcare Organization Location Association \[snhclsorganizationlocationassociation\]** table creates explicit links between healthcare organizations and their owned healthcare locations. This association restricts visibility and reporting to only relevant locations for care teams, reducing ambiguity and improving efficiency when managing incidents or service requests. When creating or managing organizations and locations, this association ensures that care team members see only the locations their unit is responsible for, streamlining issue reporting and operational workflows. ## Practical Application * Define your healthcare organization's hierarchy using the Parent Organization field to reflect your operational structure accurately. * Create healthcare locations reflecting physical or virtual care spaces and link them to organizations to enable precise issue tracking and support. * Use the association table to restrict location visibility for care teams, ensuring efficient issue routing and resolution. * Leverage related lists to manage members, services, and customer criteria within your healthcare organizations effectively. ## Next Steps To implement these structures, refer to the following procedures within ServiceNow: * Create a healthcare location * Create a healthcare organization * Associate healthcare locations with healthcare organizations For real-world context, review worked examples such as the hospital system scenario to see how these tables and relationships apply in practice. Understand how healthcare locations and healthcare organizations function and should be organized to set up your care teams and the physical locations they operate in correctly. ## Healthcare organizations {#understanding-healthcare-locations-and-healthcare-organizations__section_qw2_1q5_dhc} The **healthcare organization** \[sn_hcls_organization\] table stores the details of a healthcare organization in your ServiceNow instance. The Parent Organization field on the linked Internal Organization or External Organization record is the authoritative reference for defining the organization hierarchy within a healthcare delivery network, capturing the structure that supports operations like access control, visibility, and routing. An example healthcare organization hierarchy might look like: **HQ** → **Hospital** → **Department** → **Unit** Structuring healthcare organizations correctly is vital to healthcare operations as it defines the organizational structure, influencing visibility, responsibility, and routing. These roles are healthcare-specific labels for the underlying Service Model Foundation (SMF) personas. For the platform-wide persona reference, including a healthcare example, see [Service Model Foundation personas](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/access?context=smf-persona&version=australia&pubname=australia-customer-service-management&ft:locale=en-US). ## Healthcare organization \[sn_hcls_organization\] table technical details {#understanding-healthcare-locations-and-healthcare-organizations__section_rw2_1q5_dhc} When a healthcare organization is created, an associated Business Organization record is also created with the same name that references the healthcare organization. A bidirectional reference exists between the two tables. Business Organization is an extension of Organization Core. A healthcare organization is associated with a Business Organization record, either internal or external. It contains specific attributes not found in the Organization Core table. For example, organization type. Use the **Parent Organization** field to create multi-level hierarchies by labeling healthcare organizations as parent to other healthcare organizations. The **healthcare organization location association** table is a M2M table used to store the explicit link between healthcare locations and their owning healthcare organization. For information on the fields present in the Healthcare organization table, see [Healthcare organization table](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/c3rQ8CsCMTJB555avg4ndA "The Healthcare organization [sn_hcls_organization] table stores the details of a healthcare organization in your ServiceNow instance."). ## Healthcare organization related lists {#understanding-healthcare-locations-and-healthcare-organizations__section_hco_related_lists} The Healthcare Operations app menu shows an example of what a healthcare organization's hierarchy and related data look like. Healthcare organizations use the child organization related list to display their direct child organizations. When a healthcare organization is created, the value it lists for **Parent Organization** indicates who the parent organization will be. The **Business Organizations served** value determines how you track the relationship between requesting and fulfilling healthcare organizations. You can set hierarchy or relationship-based support criteria for your healthcare locations. The following are all healthcare organization related lists and their features: * **Child organization** ---select New in the child organizations related list to add a new child organization to the current healthcare organization record. * **Members** ---displays all members of this organization. Select Edit to add, remove, or alter the responsibilities of members. * **Case opened by members**---displays all cases currently opened by members of this organization. * **Healthcare locations** ---displays all associated healthcare locations with this healthcare organization. Select Edit to manage these associations. * **Assignment groups**---displays all associated assignment groups. * **Available services**---displays all available services within this organization. * **Organization customer criteria**---displays which customers are serviced by this healthcare organization. {#understanding-healthcare-locations-and-healthcare-organizations__ul_hco_related_lists} ## Healthcare locations {#understanding-healthcare-locations-and-healthcare-organizations__section_rnr_jgj_xgc} The healthcare location \[sn_hcls_location\] table represents the physical or virtual places where care and operational work occur --- campuses, buildings, wings, units, rooms, and other serviceable spaces. An example healthcare location hierarchy might look like: Campus → Hospital Building → Pediatrics Wing → PICU Unit → Bed or Room Structuring healthcare locations correctly enables agents and care teams to reference the precise location of issues. For example, an IT support agent can identify what room in the PICU unit has a broken monitor that needs repair. By tying work to a specific location, ambiguity is reduced in requests and escalations, enabling for more efficient responses from care teams. ## Healthcare location \[sn_hcls_location\] table technical details {#understanding-healthcare-locations-and-healthcare-organizations__section_ehd_nwh_bhc} The healthcare location table provides the ability to map common locations to healthcare organizations. The common location \[cmn_location\] table provides the basis for location setup across the ServiceNow platform. Healthcare locations leverage common locations to extend the existing data into the HCLS data model. Healthcare locations enable you to add attributes that aren't available in the common location table. For example, the altitude field is available in healthcare locations without being added to all common locations. The **healthcare organization location association** table limits the common locations shown to care team members when reporting issues, displaying only those that their unit is responsible for. This table is used to store the explicit link between healthcare locations and their owning healthcare organization. Use the **Parent location** field to create multi-level hierarchies by labeling healthcare locations as parent to other healthcare locations. When you're creating a location, you can navigate the existing location hierarchy to select where the new location should reside. When a location is created, the Location hierarchy panel displays up to three parent levels higher within the location's hierarchy. Note: The location hierarchy is only shown when the healthcare location is opened from the Healthcare Operations Core app module. For information on the fields present in the Healthcare location table, see [Healthcare location table](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/BvZrPvnF6oqWoDsqUCBtqQ "The Healthcare Location [sn_hcls_location] table provides the ability to map common locations to Healthcare Organizations."). ## Associating healthcare locations and healthcare organizations {#understanding-healthcare-locations-and-healthcare-organizations__section_hgr_lgj_xgc} The **healthcare organization location association** table \[sn_hcls_organization_location_association\] establishes a definitive connection between healthcare organizations and healthcare locations. This connection determines the healthcare organization responsible for a particular location. Healthcare locations define which common locations a healthcare organization is responsible for. When a member of a care team unit goes to report an issue, they're presented with a limited list of common locations that their unit is responsible for. This eliminates the need to sift through all available common locations in the system. When creating a healthcare organization or a healthcare location, you can use this table to associate a healthcare location with a healthcare organization (or vice versa). For more information on this process, see [Associate healthcare locations with a healthcare organizations](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/UJpAH0lWcR8JIdOgKrSW5w "Associate healthcare locations with healthcare organizations.") This association is healthcare's implementation of the generic Service Model Foundation relationship model. For the platform-wide pattern, see [Service Model Foundation relationships](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/access?context=csm-data-model-relationships&version=australia&pubname=australia-customer-service-management&ft:locale=en-US). ## How to set up healthcare organizations and healthcare locations {#understanding-healthcare-locations-and-healthcare-organizations__section_c5v_tgj_xgc} To create healthcare locations and healthcare organizations, see the following topics. 1. [Create a healthcare location](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/t3QEgxqXSpmtTyBdkIOoHA "Create healthcare locations to designate the locations in which your care teams operate.") 2. [Create a healthcare organization](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/Dhy031E9l0~sjtcMSAgeQQ "Create a healthcare organization for use with Healthcare and Life Sciences Service Management Core.") 3. [Associate healthcare locations with a healthcare organizations](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/UJpAH0lWcR8JIdOgKrSW5w "Associate healthcare locations with healthcare organizations.") {#understanding-healthcare-locations-and-healthcare-organizations__ol_erb_xgj_xgc} For a worked example that applies these tables to a hospital system, see [Example: Service Model Foundation in a hospital setting](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/n9V3hv7d7nD8q32QAiH4aA "See how Service Model Foundation (SMF) tables for healthcare organizations and locations come together for a real hospital system.").