Requirements checklist
What to ask for when choosing software for hospitals and nursing homes.
A checklist built from how hospitals and nursing homes work, to print or save as a PDF and bring to any supplier meeting.
What the software should cover
Tick each one that matters to your business.
- Beds, admissions and discharges
- One record per patient
- Outpatient and inpatient billing
- Insurance claims
- Pharmacy stock and expiry
- Ward requisitions and equipment service
- Duty rosters and access
Roles that need their own access
Who logs in, and what each person may see or change.
- For owners and administrators
- For the front desk
- For doctors
- For pharmacists and stores
- For nursing in-charge
Reports to ask for
Ask to see each one with your own sample data.
- OPD count by doctor and by day of the week
- Collections by department and by payment mode, including advance deposits and insurance receipts still pending
- Insurance claims raised, pending and settled, with the pre-authorisation status for each admission
- Medicines expiring in the next month or quarter
- Items below reorder level
- Bed occupancy and average length of stay, by ward and room type
- Patients due for follow-up, vaccination or review this week
Systems it may need to connect to
Note which ones you already run.
- Accounts export
- SMS
- Card and gateway payments
- Google Calendar
Questions for any vendor
Put these to every supplier you are comparing.
- Does it run a token queue for walk-ins?
- Can a consultation be done by video?
- Can patients see their lab reports online?
- How do accounts reach our accounting software?
- Can patient records be linked to a national health ID or digital health scheme?
- Can our patient data be moved from existing software?
- Does it open on doctors’ phones?
- Who owns the patient records?
- What does it cost?
- Is it suitable for a large hospital?
- How long before the front desk is booking patients on it?
- What should the clinic prepare before we begin?
Where the work usually breaks today
Circle the ones you recognise. They set the order of the project.
- Ward charges miss the final bill
- Insurance claims return as queries
- Admission waits on a phone call
- Expired medicine turns up
Prefer to talk it through? See the hospitals and nursing homes page.