Using an automated RFP product

Do-it-yourself EMR/PACS selection: using an automated RFP product
By Susanna Guzman

Any radiology department looking for a RIS or PACS will eventually create a request for proposal document. Before creating the RFP though, the organization must identify and document functional system requirements. That process can take as long as a month, according to Mike Serum, an Information Systems Business Analyst with Olathe Health Systems in Olathe, Ks. Also, said Serum, making sure the list of requirements is complete is anything but easy, especially when you're starting from scratch.

For a little more than 11 years, On-Line Consultant Software has been building software that automates the RFP process for radiology departments and hospitals. While some organizations prefer to enlist consultants when selecting an IT system, many are willing to take on the task of identifying requirements and seeing which vendor measures up, said Carl Plantholt, CEO of OLC. "Our software is really a decision support tool for organizations who want to do that work themselves," said Plantholt.

With its software tools, OLC has already done much of the work, said Serum. "The OLC software includes a list of functional system requirements that the user can change in any way from editing them to deleting them," said Serum. That alone makes the process go much more quickly, cutting the time his organization has spent on RFPs from one month to three to five days.

At Serum's organization, the automated RFP process goes something like this: the "master" OLC application gets installed and Serum gathers functional experts into teams who will decide what they need their system to do. The teams go over the lists of requirements that OLC has put together, edit them as necessary and decide how important each function is. The electronic RFPs get e-mailed to vendors who respond and return them. Serum uploads the responses into the master application. Once the data has been analyzed, Serum said, he can view it in any number of ways as graphs, tables or charts to understand how vendors measure up.

Olathe Health System, which includes two hospitals and 16 ambulatory care facilities, has centralized its IT functions. When it comes to departmental system selection though, everybody gets involved, said Serum. For example, when the organization was recently in the process of evaluating radiology systems, anyone who has contact with patients, films and data participated from front-technicians to radiologists. "We create teams who decide what the requirements are and they go through the list OLC has provided one by one, deciding how important each one is," said Serum.

Being involved in the selection of a PACS system is of particular interest to radiology department managers, said Plantholt, because they're often the ones who must answer to referring physicians and radiologists when images aren't available. The OLC software, said Plantholt, can smooth the RFP process when several people, with different needs and interests, are involved.

From Serum's perspective, the OLC software has had a measurable impact on the number of functional requirements that his organization is able to submit to vendors. When starting with a blank piece of paper, he said, it's unlikely that any department will be able to come up with the 400 or so requirements that OLC includes in its tool. This level of detail is crucial, he said, because system evaluations have to be based on "some kind of numerical analysis."

For further information, contact On-Line Consultant Software, (619) 223-2024, www.olcsoft.com