Selecting the right home healthcare software application for your business is not an easy task. Whether opting to hire external consultants, go it alone, or just rely on sales people, the level of complexity remains the same. With the growing number of software vendors, the process of selecting the right software gets even more confusing. We have identified below, seven elements to selecting the right software for your home health agency.
Element 1: Understand Your Company’s Needs
While this seems very obvious, this element is often completed at the end of the decision making process instead of at the beginning. A “needs” assessment and analysis is a critical step in the process. All stakeholders should be involved in determining the needs of the company as it relates to their role and expertise. The needs of the company once identified, will serve as a guide for evaluating various software applications.
Element 2: Identifying Software Vendors
Due to federal mandates for the implementation of electronic medical record systems across the healthcare continuum, it is no surprise that there has been an increase in the number of vendors on the market. As with other products and services, it is important to assess a company’s overall viability and sustainability to ensure the potential longevity of a vendor. The second item to evaluate when reviewing a company is determining whether or not homecare is their market niche. A software vendor’s understanding of the homecare industry is critical in providing ongoing support, compliance and development of the software application.
Element 3: Cost
For many agencies, cost is the single most important determining factor when selecting a software application. Although cost and budget are significant and should be taken into account, a comprehensive review of the true cost and benefits of features should be considered. For instance, some software vendors allow customers to purchase and own the software. This option requires a significant upfront investment. Other vendors allow customers to pay a low monthly subscription fee and provide ongoing support for the software. For this second option, some vendors charge for different modules of the software while others allow customers to pay a flat fee for access to the entire software application. Additional cost factors include the number of licenses, set-up fees, how many users can access the software, a point-of-care feature, software upgrades and several other pricing options depending on the vendor. Like most things in life, you get what you pay for; therefore agencies must carefully review the “true” costs of the software before making a choice and be willing to pay for quality and dependability versus an inexpensive solution.
Element 4: Implementation
Implementation of the software application should also be assessed. Software implementation is often overlooked due to the more immediate concerns of pricing for company executives. The ease of implementation should be researched to determine how long and how difficult the implementation phase will be. Involving the potential users of the software in the selection process will help prepare and open up their minds to the potential challenges that will be faced after the eventual choice of the software. Agencies must ask the software vendor how much help they will receive in the implementation of the software. It is very helpful to have representatives of the software company available to answer questions and offer guidance during the implementation phase of the software. Needless to say, agencies should not select a software vendor that is unwilling to actively engage in and support their business during the initial implementation and training on how to use the software.
Element 5: References & Recommendations
To get a clearer picture of the vendor and product, you should request references and recommendations. References should consist of current clients who are actively using the software who you can speak to and ask questions. Recommendations should also be obtained from their active client base and anyone who has used the software application. By actively engaging current users, you can gain insight into their own successes and challenges with using the software.
Element 6: Trial Period
Request a trial period to conduct a “test drive” of the application; this is where you can get some level of detail on the actual evaluation of the product. Go through the various scenarios that you encounter on a day to day basis at your agency and assess how the features and work-flow assist in this process. Trial periods should be discussed and if offered, agencies should take advantage of them to obtain a better sense of how the software will fit into your agency operations.
Element 7: Training & Support
Although at the bottom of the list, this element is a vital key in the success of your agencies implementation of a software application. Initial and on-going training needs should be addressed prior to the selection of a specific vendor. Questions that should be asked are:
1) How many hours and how is the initial training provided? Via webinar, On-site, etc. Is there a fee?
2) Is on-going training available? If so is there a fee?
Technical and customer support are also extremely important when evaluating software vendors. With the initial implementation, it is expected there will be questions and a need to contact someone that can assist you with these issues. As with training, the lack of technical/customer support can often lead to poor results when implementing a new software application. It is important that issues both real and potential are addressed to ensure that a sufficient amount of support and training will be provided to staff for a successful implementation.
