Healthcare
Vendor Evaluation & Selection

Lab7X
Business & IT Consulting

This section will focus on the vendor selection and RFP development to ensure a successful outcome. The RFP will have a major influence on the selection criteria by defining all the specifics of what you are buying and the best offer from the vendor that has tailored the solution to your situation.

Vendor Evaluation Process
Define performance criteria, remedies, and dispute resolution processes in terms you can understand and measure.

Contingencies: 

  • Is your organization going to change (grow, shrink, refocus, etc.)?
  • Ensure the contract has provisions for the vendor to keep the product current with federal, state, and regulatory requirements
  • What if the vendor leaves the business (software replacement clause, escrow, etc.)?

Preparation for Vendor Selection Personal Goals List: These goals will guide you with the selection of vendors; and they are separated into four categories:

Functionality (features): This list should include, but is not limited to goals about: patient encounter documentation, automating and facilitating office workflow, decision support during patient encounters, reporting that supports care management, and template customization.

Usability (speed and ease of use): This list should include, but is not limited to goals about: tasks often done that must be done fast, peculiarities of the practice such as computer literacy, and desired input method that impact usability.

Practicality (price, interfaces, support): This list should include, but is not limited to goals about: price, integrated versus interfaced practice management system, interfaces with labs, etc., internal resources needed to customize and maintain the database, etc., overall support needs.

Reputation (company history, longevity, etc.): This list should include, but is not limited to goals about: how established the vendor needs to be (level of risk adversity), what sort of relationship you would like to have with the company—you’re not just buying software; you’re forming a relationship with a company whose software will change over time.

The RFP Should Spell Out
Possible Features

Clinical Decision Support 

  • Point of care decision support tools 
  • Patient registry and outreach reports 
  • Practice analysis tools & reports 
  • Plotter support capability

Practice Management (PM) 

  • Integrated with PM system 
  • Demographics uni-directional interface (PM to EMR) 
  • Demographics bi-directional interface 
  • Billing / coding interface (EMR to PM) 
  • Access to PM financial / insurance information 
  • Access to PM appointments and scheduling

Other Interfaces & EDI

  • Lab orders and results between lab & EMR
  • Radiology orders and reports between X-ray & EMR
  • Diagnostic images (X-ray to EMR) 
  • Other diagnostic tests
  • Electronic payer connectivity 

Display Options (In addition to text) & Custom Views 

  • Views customizable by user such as patient name, ID, account number, Social Security number, EMR number, etc.
    Data Searching 
  • By date, by problem, by encounter, etc. 
  • Access limited by encounter type 
  • Screen time-outs 
  • HIPAA compliant access audit trail

Technical

Security 

  • Support inquiry, update and delete capabilities for all information entered based on user security level 
  • Provide multiple levels of security with definable levels of privilege (e.g., application, function, job function, functional group, screen, user)

Support a security reporting function including, but not limited to: 

  • User audit trail 
  • All users who have used a given function 
  • All users who have updated a given record 
  • Provide security to control remote access (e.g., dial back, VPN) 
  • Support the creation and use of “profile templates” and provide a method for defining access privileges for groups of users 
  • Report Writer

Here you can define all the requirements for generating reports. Such as

  • Provide one integrated report writer with access to all fields within all modules 
  • Provide a report writer that is menu driven
  • Provide templates (e.g., “Query for Example”) for customization and the creation of new reports 
  • supports Boolean logic included as a report writer capability including:  

Hardware 

  • Support the use of portable devices (e.g., pen tablets) for the collection of data for subsequent upload to the appropriate module 
  • System fully integrates and supports web based technology. 
  • Allow reports to be viewed on-line? 


Network Access 

  • Application can be executed in a thin client environment such as Citrix. 
  • System allows for full automated backups 
  • System allows for incremental automated backups 
  • System able to send messages to users through the corporate mail server 
  • Firewall between Internet and corporate network 
  • User authentication is supported for data access 


Documentation and Tutorials 

  • Provide summarized user guides for screens, templates, dictionary, self-paced training, etc.


On-Line Help 

  • Provide on-line prompting for menu-screen selections, on-line help & support, etc. 
  • Provide “pull-down” menus for screen prompting