---
sourceDocument: Australia Healthcare and Life Sciences
sourceDocumentLink: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/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) 4 minutes to read

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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 properly organize healthcare locations and healthcare organizations within your ServiceNow instance to support care teams and operational workflows effectively.
Proper structuring impacts visibility, responsibility, routing, and access control, which are crucial for healthcare operations and support services.
Show full answer Show less  

## Healthcare Organizations

The **healthcare organization** is represented by the `snhclsorganization` table and captures the organizational hierarchy such as HQ, hospital, department, and unit. This hierarchy is defined by the **Parent Organization** field and supports operational functions like routing and visibility.

Each healthcare organization is linked bidirectionally with a **Business Organization** record that extends the core organizational data with healthcare-specific attributes such as organization type. Multi-level hierarchies can be created by setting parent-child relationships among healthcare organizations.

Healthcare organizations have several related lists, including:

* **Child organizations:** Add and view direct sub-organizations.
* **Members:** Manage organization members and their responsibilities.
* **Cases opened by members:** Track active cases reported by organization members.
* **Healthcare locations:** Associate physical or virtual locations with the organization.
* **Assignment groups:** Link assignment groups related to the organization.
* **Available services:** View services offered by the organization.
* **Organization customer criteria:** Define which customers are served.

## Healthcare Locations

The **healthcare location** is represented by the `snhclslocation` table and defines the physical or virtual places where care and operational activities occur (e.g., campus, building, wing, unit, room).

Healthcare locations extend the common locations (`cmnlocation`) in ServiceNow by adding healthcare-specific attributes such as altitude. Locations are organized hierarchically using a **Parent location** field, enabling multi-level structures like Campus → Building → Unit → Room.

Correctly structuring healthcare locations allows care teams and support agents to pinpoint exact locations for issues, improving clarity and response times.

## Associating Healthcare Locations and Organizations

The `snhclsorganizationlocationassociation` table explicitly links healthcare locations to their owning healthcare organizations. This association controls which locations are visible to members of care teams when reporting issues, restricting them to locations their unit is responsible for, thereby simplifying workflows.

This association implements the Service Model Foundation relationship model tailored for healthcare.

## Practical Application for ServiceNow Customers

* Define your healthcare organizations in a clear hierarchy using the Parent Organization field to reflect your operational structure.
* Create healthcare locations reflecting your physical or virtual care spaces, organizing them hierarchically to facilitate precise issue tracking and reporting.
* Associate healthcare locations with their respective healthcare organizations to control visibility and responsibility accurately.
* Use the related lists within healthcare organizations to manage members, cases, services, and customer criteria effectively.
* Leverage these configurations to improve routing, access control, and operational visibility across your healthcare delivery network.

For detailed steps on setup, refer to the instructions on creating healthcare locations, healthcare organizations, and their associations within your ServiceNow instance.  
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

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
2. Create a healthcare organization
3. Associate healthcare locations with a healthcare organizations
{#understanding-healthcare-locations-and-healthcare-organizations__ol_erb_xgj_xgc}