The short answer
A clinical system is a commitment measured in years. The things that will matter are data access, integration, support and how difficult it would be to leave.
All four are cheaper to establish now than to discover later.
The questions that matter
| Question | Why |
|---|---|
| Can we export all our data, in full | Determines whether you can ever leave |
| What does the export contain | Partial exports are common |
| What interfaces exist | Determines integration cost |
| What support response is committed | Not what is aspired to |
| What happens at the end of the contract | Including data and transition |
The second row deserves pressing. An export that omits attachments, audit history or free text is not an export of your records.
Ask about the things that go wrong
- What happens during an outage, and who is told.
- How upgrades are scheduled and whether you can decline one.
- What testing you get before an upgrade reaches live use.
- What happened in their last significant incident.
- Who else uses this, at your size, that we can speak to.
Point two is worth pressing. An upgrade applied without warning, changing a workflow clinicians rely on, is disruptive in a way it would not be elsewhere.
Check the reference properly
- Similar size and setting to yours
- Live for at least a couple of years
- Ask what they would do differently
- Ask what support has actually been like
- Ask about the migration, specifically
A reference in its first months tells you about sales and implementation. One several years in tells you what living with it is like.
Governance from the start
Data location, subprocessors, retention and breach notification all need answering before signing, not during an information governance review afterwards.
Suppliers who work in this sector will have these answers ready. Hesitation on any of them is itself informative.