As a result, software vendors are responding to the marketplace. The historical method of delivery, short of a brand new implementation, is the upgrade. Vendors have their own desire to reduce cost of support, so they need to roll out upgrades efficiently and cost-effectively to avoid supporting many versions of the same product. The truth of the matter is, unless an end user organization is licensed to have total code autonomy, there is no choice when it comes to an upgrade. The only option, sometimes, is timing.
Planning is one of the most important aspects in the upgrade process.
Most vendors have already developed a boilerplate project plan for the upgrade from its beta sites. On the surface, these boilerplate plans look comprehensive, but there will clearly be room for tailoring. It s in the best interest of the project manager to form an upgrade committee with members who represent each department in the organization that is involved in the use of the software to be upgraded. This includes representatives from organizational partners involved in interface development and maintenance, registration, charge capture, data entry, data repository maintenance, claims processing, remittance processing, reporting, and business management. Every unique aspect of the organization s business process must be evaluated to ensure that the upgrade s new features and functionality do not compromise existing business process flows, such as data capture, data processing and reporting, and patient satisfaction.