Full Guide - PDF file (23 pages/ 380 KB)

The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) and Microsoft® Corporation have partnered to identify practice management software (PMS) with the following characteristics:

• Accomplishes a minimum set of tasks that are fundamental to the business activities of a solo or small-group family practice
• Is technically well-designed and robust
• Has been used successfully by family practice offices
• Has been developed by and is supported by a company with sufficient longevity and financial strength to be expected to continue to support their practice management software for the foreseeable future
• Uses a Microsoft operating system and database (specifically, Windows and SQL Server)

A review of several sources identified 11 vendors with products using a Microsoft operating system and database. Of these, nine agreed to participate:

• Compusense, Inc.
• e-MDs®
• Greenway Medical Technologies, Inc.
• InfoSys, Inc.
• MedStar Systems, LLC
• Millbrook Corporation
• NextGen Healthcare Information Systems, Inc.
• PerfectPractice.MD
• Visionary Medical Systems, Inc.

The practice management software products of these nine vendors were subjected to intensive review in the functional, technical and financial/corporate areas. The functional evaluation determined the presence or absence of 57 key functionalities. The technical evaluation included an on-site visit by a team of technical experts from Microsoft to the vendor's premises, detailed discussions with the vendor's technical team, a close examination of the architecture of the product, its design, and the methodology for building and testing it. The purpose of this detailed examination was to ensure that the technology is reliable, secure, and supportable, that it is capable of working with other modern technologies including the Internet, and that it fits the environment of physician offices. The financial evaluation involved detailed examination of the vendor's financial statements, accounting methods, customer base, growth projections, operating procedures, and potential future liability. The goal of this in-depth review was to measure each vendor’s financial and basic operational sustainability and predictability in a challenging economic environment. Scores on each of these three areas were converted to a 0 to 100 scale. A simple average of these three scaled scores was calculated for the composite rating of each vendor.

In addition, vendors were invited to ask 20 customers with install dates between 2000 and the present to provide customer satisfaction feedback via a web-based survey. This information is provided in the report but was not included in the composite ratings.

All of the vendors offered nearly all of the key functions sought, ranging from 88% to 98%. However, there were large variances between vendors on both the technical and the financial/corporate evaluations. To provide a more comprehensive single measure to compare PMS suites, we developed a composite of the evaluations of the above characteristics by averaging the scores for the individual evaluations (See Attachment G and Figure 5). Based on this composite score, four companies scored above 75 on a scale of 0 to 100: CompuSense, Greenway, Millbrook, and NextGen. Physicians preparing to purchase a practice management software system are urged to consider the relative importance of these three factors to their own situation and needs.

Investing in practice management software is not the purchase of an undifferentiated commodity, subject only to price considerations. If that were the case, we would not see the vendors investing in improvements in their product’s architecture, design and reliability. Quite to the contrary, our technical evaluations would seem to suggest that this is the arena in which customers are won or lost. But choosing a PMS vendor based solely on the product’s technical merits ignores the question of vendor sustainability in a crowded market. In the end, a careful balancing of risks and trade-offs will point the user to the right PMS vendor to meet his or her needs.

This initiative and the attached Technology Guide are provided for informational purposes only and are not an endorsement, recommendation or guarantee of any service, product or vendor. The selection of a software vendor and the transaction of business with any selected vendor is your sole responsibility and should be undertaken only after thorough investigation and analysis.

BOTH AAFP AND MICROSOFT EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE WITH RESPECT TO INFORMATION OR RESULTS SET FORTH IN THIS OR ANY OTHER DOCUMENT RELATED TO THE INITIATIVE. IN NO EVENT WILL EITHER AAFP OR MICROSOFT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, DIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, OR SPECIAL DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, LOSS OF OR UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO INFORMATION, AND THE LIKE, ARISING OUT OF THIS INITIATIVE, EVEN IF EITHER MICROSOFT OR AAFP HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

©2002 American Academy of Family Physicians. All rights reserved.

dfs 5/15/02