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Are you ready to take a [R.sup.2]ISC? An overview of a method for comparing software packages.

Article Excerpt
To ensure that your organization makes an educated software purchase, you need to know exactly what a software package can and cannot do before you sign on the dotted line. There is a good possibility that no software package can do everything you want. That's OK if you agree, before you purchase the package, to accept the limitations.

But selecting the right software package is only half the battle. If the software implementation process does not go smoothly, staff can become demoralized, and the software package ultimately can fail to meet your organization's needs.

To select the "best" software package, an organization needs an accounting of all of its requirements. Many organizations purchase software without knowing what they really need, and later wonder why the software does not work.

The [R.sup.2]ISC Criteria

One way to determine your organization's software requirements is to use the [R.sup.2]ISC Criteria, which I developed. [R.sup.2]ISC is an acronym for:

* Requirements Current

* Requirements Future

* Implementability

* Supportability

* Cost

Requirements Current are all the known requirements. Examples include the ability to produce an electronic claim in the format your state's Medicaid agency requires and the ability to produce a bill for a client, among many others.

Requirements Future is the software's ability to meet your future needs (of which you are not yet aware). If software is well-designed, well-written, and well-documented (i.e., notes in the software make it easy for someone to modify it, and good implementation, technical, and user manuals are available), it will be easy for the vendor to enhance and upgrade the software. Also, if the vendor is not financially sound and bankruptcy is a possibility, there is a good...