Process of selecting vendors and software

Contact any medical societies you are a member of to ask for EHR evaluation tools and resources. Find information about different vendors online.

Ask for information about the vendor's organizational profile, implementation and training model, ongoing support, health information exchange HIE capability and included interfaces, Meaningful Use guarantee, estimated total cost of ownership , and availability for demonstrations.

Using these tools will help you narrow the field further before you conduct demonstrations. Make sure to pay attention to the EHR 's core functionalities, look and feel, and practice management features as well as walking through consistent clinical scenarios with each EHR you are assessing.

Contact the references and schedule time to visit the providers in person. Prepare a list of questions to gather lessons learned by the practice before, during, and after implementation. See the impacts a strong implementation partner can make in this Tennant Case Study. Toggle navigation. Seven Key Phases of Software Selection Selecting the right software for your business can be one of the most important decisions you make over the next several years.

Analyze Software Requirements Any effective software selection project must start with analyzing and organizing a strong requirements document. Research Software Vendors With strong Requirements Documentation and Selection Criteria, determine the scope of your targeted comparison.

Make Informed Software Decisions Armed with a strong understanding of your unique business requirements, decide on the best fit for your organization. Negotiate a Good Software Contract This time in the project is when you have the most leverage. Our next blog will detail the best roadmap to successful software selection.

This helps to amplify the differences among vendors. After completion of vendor briefings, the team should be better equipped to evaluate potential vendors. Demos are a valuable way to get more information and also evaluate intangible aspects of a vendor. At the conclusion of the evaluation process, the team will identify a primary option the winner and a secondary alternative. This step includes identifying a clear set of objectives, deliverables, timeframes, and budgets for the project with the vendor.

These should be clearly written in the terms of the contract. One of the most important factors in the vendor selection process is to develop a contract negotiation strategy. A successful contract negotiation simply means that both parties will search for positives that will benefit the two parties in every aspect while they achieve a fair and equitable deal.

Know and communicate deadlines. Regardless of how much research you do, it is possible to choose a bad vendor. It is a challenge for the buyer to know which vendor will meet their needs while doing a quality job. There is a five phase process to assist you in the vendor selection process.

This planning process is customized to the individual organization or agency due to the internal culture, policies and procedures needed for acquiring goods and services.

During this process, you will determine whether products or services will be produced within the organization or outsourced to a vendor. This is the time to use the market research that you have conducted. Once you have determined that you are going to hire a vendor, a Request for Proposal RFP will be drafted. Make sure your contract terms and conditions are clear, detail pricing and all incentives or conditions, and create provisions for changes or amendments to the contract.

It does take time to properly complete a RFP, so allow enough time for prospective vendors to ask any questions and submit their proposal. Once you have responses to your RFP, it is time to go through each submission and select a vendor. Some key areas to examine are the financial stability of the organization, the length of time in business, recommendations from similar organizations, and the trustworthiness of the organization.

Conducting a risk analysis will determine whether the vendor is stable enough to be considered for a contract. This analysis should be fair, unbiased, and standardized.

Organizations will use various evaluation processes to determine who their vendor should be. The process is based on how the organization chooses to examine and measure the bids which come in during the procurement process. Some procurement processes require that the lowest price vendor be chosen in every situation. The most common method is the vendor who provides the best value compared to cost.

The first thing to do when speaking with your vendor is to make sure you have clearly detailed your expectations. An orientation time can help with this. It allows you to give all expectations beyond what is designated in the contract. Before the vendor gets started on the project, create a statement of work.