Giving back to an industry that has given much to me.
I know Thanksgiving is still a month away but the “giving” season has started early for me. I announced earlier this week that Swearingen Software would give away a RIS to a deserving hospital or clinic. You might ask why in these economic times would I give away a RIS? Well, the answer is pretty simple. You see, I’ve been fortunate to be a part of the healthcare industry for a long, long time. Because of my good fortune with Swearingen Software, I want to give back to the healthcare industry that has enabled my company to grow and thrive over the past quarter century.
And because the economic climate is as dismal as it is, I know that purchasing healthcare information technologies is difficult, if not impossible. So, we have decided to hold a contest and give away one free RIS to a "hardship" radiology department. In this case, we would like to award a hospital or clinic that has fallen on difficult economic times, our state of the art RIS. This contest includes the RISynergy software, installation and training, and one year of our superior customer support for free. This is our way of helping with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
This contest will begin Monday, November 2, 2009. You can find more details on our website, www.swearingensoftware.com. You may know someone at a hospital or imaging center that needs a RIS. If you do, I’m sure they would appreciate hearing about the giveaway. The final date to enter the Hardship RIS Give-Away will be Thursday, December 31, 2009. I think you’ll agree with me that Swearingen employees and customers would be best to make the decision of who receives the RIS and we will announce the winner on Monday, February 1, 2010.
Oh, and for the cynics in the crowd who question why I’m doing this, I have just one response for you – what are you doing for your industry?
We can all recall the question posed by one of our country’s most infamous presidents as he challenged a nation to ask not what their country could do for them, but what they could do for their country. The question made sense to me then. It makes sense to me now to give back to an industry that has given much to me.
I welcome your comments and responses.
Randall
Understanding the true cost of your RIS – it may be more than you think.
COSTS
When you ask a RIS vendor for a price quote, what do you get? You generally will receive a quote that outlines the upfront cost and annual support cost for that particular system. What about the less visible costs such as software upgrade fees, hardware upgrade fees, custom programming fees, license renewal fees, etc.? Not knowing these fees can create major headaches when unbudgeted expenses begin to arise after the installation of your new RIS. To avoid these surprises, you need to ask these questions before you sign a contract:
1) How much do you charge for software upgrades and/or updates? It is not uncommon for vendors to charge 20% of license fees for upgrades in addition to the normal support fee.
2) How much do you charge per hour for custom programming for programmers vs. analysts, etc.? You might not think that you will ever need custom program changes to your RIS but approximately 80% of all facilities will need one or more such changes during the first year of use of their RIS. Imagine using your entire RIS budget to purchase your new RIS and then find out it will cost an additional $20K (or more) to make a software change that you really need.
3) Will my software license expire and if so, after how many years? Did you know that some vendor’s license agreements are for a specific number of years, such as seven? After that, you are required to purchase a brand new license agreement at the then current prices.
4) How often do you require that hardware be upgraded? Be aware that the cost to upgrade hardware is sometimes more expensive than the RIS license itself. RIS vendors that use generic hardware have an advantage over those who don’t because you can purchase generic hardware anywhere. If the hardware is more proprietary, you might be limited to only purchasing it from your RIS vendor and at higher prices.
Bottom line: Require that the vendor specify all the costs that you might incur over the first five years of use of their product.
Support for your RIS: Are you speaking the same language?
The language of radiology is unique to other departments or practices in healthcare. Those who run a radiology department for a hospital or who operate an imaging center will tell you that. Understanding the language of the RIS workflow is as important as understanding spoken language. Can you have an understanding of RIS workflow if you’ve never worked in a radiology environment? Can you truly speak effectively to someone in their native language if that is not your native language?
Most likely when you purchased your RIS, the salesperson told you they have excellent 24x7 support and not to worry if you have any problems. The system has just been installed and the install team has just left your facility and headed to their next install. A question comes up that you need answered so you call their toll-free support line only to find out that their support comes from Asia, India or some other non-English speaking country. The person you are trying to talk to can barely speak English (much less understand it). This is a major complaint among RIS users because many RIS vendors have outsourced their support outside the country in order to reduce their costs.
On the other hand, maybe the RIS support is coming directly from the United States but the support staff is comprised of folks who know their product, but don’t know the internal workings of a radiology department. Thus, it’s kind of like a male mammo tech performing a mammogram on a woman. They may have the knowledge but do they really understand the procedure the way a woman mammo tech would? The ideal support person for a RIS product is an ex-tech or an ex-radiology manager who has used that particular RIS product. Not only do they understand the product, they more importantly understand the day-to-day pressures and needs of the radiology staff.
Another important factor regarding support calls is the average time it takes to get a return call and the average time it takes a vendor to resolve an issue. Both of these are great questions to ask the referrals that you contact for a given RIS vendor. If a vendor is understaffed in support, you might experience several days before receiving a return call.
Bottom line: Make sure you know who you will be dealing with in regards to technical support for your RIS. Are they radiology knowledgeable? Can they speak understandable English? Is there ample support staff? What do existing customers think about their support?
RFP’s
The purpose of an RFP is to allow the potential buyer to ask a series of questions about features and functionality of a product so that they can make an intelligent purchasing decision. Many times, a healthcare facility does not have the time to create their own RFP, so they use a generic one that they get from another facility or one they found on the internet. Either way, contrary to popular belief, RFPs are rarely beneficial and are basically an opportunity for the vendor to legally misrepresent their product(s). Their defense will be “Ohhhhh, I didn’t know that was what you meant!”
Imagine going through a single day where the only two words that you were allowed to use were “Yes” and “No”. Those two words certainly answer a lot of questions but what about all the gray area in between? What if the answer to a given question is “Yes” under certain circumstances but “No” under other circumstances but the circumstances were not defined? What if, as a vendor, I’m limited to answering “Yes” to any five items in a list but there are 15 items in that list? Answering “Yes” to all of them is not lying because theoretically, I can do any five of them. Hopefully, you are beginning to see the weaknesses of the RFP concept. Someone filling out the RFP can basically give “Yes” answers to everything and feel justified in their answers because the questions were not specific enough or because the question could easily be interpreted in a different way.
Bottom line: If you are going to use an RFP, make sure it is ultra specific regarding your needs so that the chances of misinterpretation are minimized. Also, the needs of your facility are likely to be very different from the facility that originally authored the RFP so using someone else’s RFP is like taking someone else’s medication...don’t!
It’s Who You Know When it Comes to Your RIS Vendor
There’s an old saying “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” I like to think that what you know is equally important as who you know, but when it comes to RIS vendors that may not be the case. Some RIS vendors have been around for many years while others have surfaced just in the past few years. My message today will address just how well do you know your RIS vendor?
Does your RIS vendor have dozens of customers, just a handful? RIS products can generally be compared to wines (i.e. the longer they are around, the better they are). A RIS product/vendor that has been around for 10 or more years is much more likely to; 1) contain more useful features, 2) be more configurable, 3) have deep knowledge of radiology information systems and 4) be a much more mature product. Younger products are much more likely to; 1) contain significant bugs and 2) be designed around input from just a couple of facilities and thus be very limited in features and flexibility.
Was your RIS product designed strictly for clinics and imaging centers? Or was it designed specifically for hospitals? If you’re an imaging center, it’s good to get to know your RIS vendor before selecting your RIS to make sure you select a RIS that meets the unique needs of the free-standing imaging center. If you select a RIS for your clinic that has been implemented mostly in hospitals (and visa versa), your selection could result in major problems for you.
Lastly, does the RIS vendor offer other products such as PACS, HIS, Pharmacy, Lab, etc? Or, do they specialize in just the RIS product? One advantage of combined products is that they can be (but not always) integrated to optimize the way they work together. The downside is the fact that not all the products in a vendor’s product line can be ‘top of the line’. The key, if selecting a multi-product vendor, is to make sure that the RIS is tightly integrated with the other products and that it is capable of handling your needs. Thus the HIS might be powerful but the RIS might be very limited. One advantage of going with a RIS specialist is that you know you are getting a ‘top of the line’ RIS from a vendor who knows and understands your needs. The key, if selecting a RIS specialist, is to get the vendor to guarantee connectivity to your other products.
Bottom line: It is important to know how long a RIS product has been on the market and to get a breakdown from the vendor of how many hospital customers vs. clinic customers they have. So, if your facility is a clinic, you want to make sure the vendor has a significant number of clinic customers to insure they understand how clinics operate. Likewise, if your facility is a hospital, make sure the vendor has a large number of hospital clients.