by Michael Uretz, Executive Director EHR Group
© 2008 Michael Uretz
all rights reserved
As I thought about
my experience over the past few years negotiating contracts with Electronic
Health Records and Electronic Medical Records vendors, I kept coming back to
one of the top questions posed by frustrated providers and administrators
attending my seminars and workshops... "How can we guarantee we'll get timely vendor
support when we need it?" For some reason, Murphy's Law ("Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong"), seems
to always kick in after the system is installed, the final payment is tendered,
and the practice is now dependent on the new technology. After all, you're
paying a substantial percentage of your license fee every year for your support
and maintenance "rights". But still, in most cases, the onus is on you to protect
your own interests. I have infrequently run across a vendor that voluntarily
offers to penalize themselves for poor support or that guarantees and commits to
exactly how you will be taken care of. You need to become the "squeaky wheel"
when you need support and a "squeaky wheel" gets better traction if you have contractual
"teeth" backing you up. Thus, the concept of support clauses in your contracts
or separate Service Level Agreements (SLA's)...
These
agreements outline various areas of vendor accountability in which the vendor
is willing to make a commitment to service and support with associated
penalties. I've worked with IT contracts for almost 30 years and for some
reason many EHR and EMR vendor contracts have had very "lightweight" or weak contractual
clauses when it comes to customer support assurances and guarantees. Some
important areas to be aware of include the following.
Hours of support.
Don't just accept such terms as support during "standard
business hours". You need to have a specified range of hours. And make sure the
hours are satisfactory based on local time. I've seen support clauses where an
East Coast Vendor specifies 8-6 EST and the client is on the West coast. That
would put the ending of a normal support day at 3pm PST. Remember, any issues
that are resolved outside of normal business hours typically have an additional
charge.
Problem Escalation
Whether
it be your phone company or bank, have you ever gotten frustrated by the lack
of knowledge or problem resolution by the immediate support person, and have
asked to speak to the "manager". This is what I'm talking about. In the case of
your EHR contract make sure it's the levels of escalation are specified ahead
of time. These are your rights. This can also include asking that the vendor's
support person come on site if the issue can't be resolved by the normal means
in a reasonable timeframe.
Response and Resolution Times
How
long does it take a vendor to respond to you when you have a problem? How long
will it take to actually fix the problem? If your system is completely down or if
this is an issue that affects patient care, will you be expected to wait 24
hours or will you get taken care of immediately. Be aware that different
functions of the system might warrant different response times. For example, clinical
documentation problems might need immediate attention, while a problem with a
patient education module might not be as urgent. Get a commitment as to how
long the vendor will guarantee a response to you. This includes associated
financial penalties if they fail to meet their commitments. That's a powerful
"squeaky wheel"!
Upgrading to New Versions
What
about new releases of your software as time goes on? By paying your support and
maintenance fee you certainly have the right to receive new releases free of
charge. But, I've seen contracts where a vendor has the right to expect you to
upgrade in a short timeframe or support will be reduced or even dropped until
you are compliant with the new system. From a vendor's perspective, this is
great because they would only need to support the newest version. However, you
might not want to install the newest version right away, as the time to test and
install a new version is not trivial and can possibly impact your internal
resources and the operation of your practice. Also, many times, new releases can have some
initial kinks. You should always expect that, at the very least, a vendor will
support the previous version(s) for a reasonable amount of time.
There
are more items to address in an acceptable Support clause or Service level
Agreement, but hopefully the above tips will help get you thinking and pave the
way to greater comfort in this area. Remember, you can choose the right vendor
and get a great deal, but the key to your ultimate success is in holding your
vendor accountable for the service and support you expect and deserve.
For more information about the subjects discussed here you can contact Michael Uretz by email mikeu@ehrgroup.com or 1-888 5 GET EHR
See our other Getting Started resources here.
Contact information for Mike:
Michael Uretz, Executive Director
The EHR Group
700 NW Gilman Blvd. Suite E293
Issaquah, WA 98027
Tel: +1 (425) 434-7103
E-mail: sales@ehrgroup.com
Website: www.ehrgroup.com
Posted
Aug 19 2008, 02:31 AM
by
Nick Harrington