Guinea pig: Should you test software?
The pros and cons of serving as a beta site
Do you wish the person who developed the home care software you use had asked you what you wanted? Would you jump at the chance to get your software vendor to customize its product to your needs? Do you wish your software developer had representatives who would work alongside you as you implement its product?
Serving as a beta site for home care software developers and vendors gives home care providers the chance at all these things. Beta testing is the process of final trials most home health care automation software is put through to work out any remaining bugs before the software is released to the general public. In the software industry, the home care providers that agree to serve as guinea pigs for this testing are known as "beta sites."
"Beta testing is essential because we can't foresee everything that might go wrong with our products before our clients use them" says Steven Griff, MBA, MPA, the president of HCIS, a home care software vendor in Bloomfield, NJ.
Though serving as a beta site has many advantages, doing so also can be a tremendous drain
on managers' scarce time. Testing the software requires a lot more contact and cooperation with the
software developer than just buying the finished product would.
Beta site benefits
"Being a beta site slows down our operations for a little while, but we get the features we want, and our problems are taken care of immediately," says Mary Laughton, the director of management of information services at the Visiting Nurse Association (VNA) of the Treasure Coast in Vero Beach, FL. Five years ago, Laughton's company did an eight-week stint as a beta site for Infomed, a software company based in Princeton, NJ, and is doing so again currently.
These are the benefits of serving as a beta site, say Laughton and other home care providers:
* Providers may request modifications to the software.
This is perhaps the most advantageous aspect of serving as a beta site. Home care providers may say what they don't like about a software application, and the developers often will make the provider's suggested changes.
"Virtually everything we thought we needed added or changed, we got," says Bruce G. Harlow, MM, the director of information services at Health Care At Home and St. Thomas Hospice in Hinsdale, IL. Harlow's company served as a beta site for HCIS several years ago and plans to serve again as a beta site in the near future.
* Providers develop close relationships with the vendor.
Home care providers often complain that software vendors don't take their problems seriously enough, and that it takes too long for problems to get solved. Having a close relationship with your software vendor can ensure that you get better service than you would otherwise, providers say.
"I wouldn't say we get preferential treatment, but we have developed good relations with the people at HAI [Healthcare Automation Inc.], and our input is weighed heavily by them. There is a lot of respect and trust between us," says David Houseknecht, BS, CPA, the director of finance and operations at Geisinger Medical Management Corp., a home care provider in Danville, PA.
* Beta site training can be more thorough than regular training.
Working closely with a software developer allows providers to learn more about the product they're testing and using than with a straight purchase, say providers and vendors. In addition to having the software developers on site to train you and your staff, you also learn how to use all of the software's features, which you might not do on your own.
"They're looking at it more deeply, so they get to know it better," Griff says.
Griff estimates that most of his clients only use between 30% to 60% of the products' capabilities. Home care companies who have been beta testers use all of the features, he says.
* The vendor tests your computer system to make sure it works before the beta test begins, so you're almost getting free service.
Having your computer system tested by an outsider can help find problems you didn't know existed. For example, HAI tested Geisinger Medical's equipment and found the on-line claims processing system had some information loaded incorrectly, Houseknecht explains.
"I have peace of mind now, because I know they've tested it," he says.
Additional benefits that come from serving
as a beta site include:
* Providers don't have to wait as long to get new software and upgrades as others do.
* Providers' problems with the software are fixed immediately.
* The software company takes providers' calls immediately.
* Serving as a beta site for a software program upgrade can be easier than installing and implementing the upgraded version of the program without help.
But serving as a beta site involves a lot of responsibility and commitment of time from providers.
"It does not come without headaches," says Houseknecht.
These are some of the responsibilities home health care companies have as beta testers:
* The amount of time required can be large, depending on the size of the software program that is being tested.
"We spent more time preparing for it than we did actually doing the two-week-long beta test," Houseknecht says.
Houseknecht compares the time commitment necessary to that of preparing for survey by the Oakbrook Terrace, IL-based Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. But the stress level might be less. "I'd rather upgrade our software than get surveyed by the [Joint Commission]," Houseknecht says.
These are some of the tasks providers have to do to prepare for and carry out the beta testing:
-- Participate in loading the software.
-- Complete comparison reports before and after loading the software.
-- Process patients through the system.
-- Run reports and turn in copies of them daily or weekly, depending on the needs of the vendor.
-- Participate in weekly telephone conferences and turn in weekly reports. These can take five to 10 minutes, or they can take hours, depending on the size of the problems that arise during the test.
* The workload on staff is heavy and can become frustrating for them.
Laughton says she wasn't sure whether to put her company through another beta test because the staff had found the first test to be quite frustrating. But when she asked her colleagues at the VNA of the Treasure Coast if they would serve as a beta site again, they said yes, but only as long as a staff member from Infomed served on site to help them through the process.
* You're guaranteed to find a problem with the system.
Finding problems that must be solved is the purpose of beta testing.
"You're always going to find bugs and glitches in the system. The worst-case scenario is that the new software will screw up your systems for a couple of hours or even days," Harlow says.
* Data can be damaged.
You have to be even more careful to back up your data because if you're testing the new software on "live" data, you run the risk of damaging or losing it, and then you have to restore it, Griff says.
These are some additional reasons why serving as a beta test site can be a burden:
* All errors and problems must be reported immediately by telephone or in writing, depending on the needs of the vendors.
* Providers have to be organized so nothing goes wrong on their end during the beta test.
* The success of the beta testing depends on the provider's ability to get data collected and entered into the system on time.
* Staff must learn how to use the new program on the job, rather than having the chance to go to official training before using it as one would with a general release of the software.
If a software company is testing a new version of an existing application, it will ask an existing user to
serve as a beta site. Usually the user will be a home health care company that already has
a fairly close relationship with the software company. Often the home health care company volunteers
for the job of beta testing.
If the software that needs to be tested is a new product, the software company often will ask one of its clients that uses another application to serve as a beta site. Or, the company may ask a home health care provider that has served in focus groups for developing the new software to serve as a beta site.
This doesn't mean that a new user can't serve as a beta site, says Rashel D. Feldman, MHA, the director of operations at Datacron, a home care software development company in Elmhurst, IL. But a new user would have to be an avid learner to serve as a beta site, she says. (See computer software developers' criteria for choosing beta sites, p. 9.)
Most software vendors use three or four beta sites at a time to test the same product.
Depending on the software company and the product being tested, the beta test may last only two weeks, or it may last for up to 90 days. For example, a computerized billing program would need to be tested for at least one complete billing cycle. A clinical record-keeping program might only be tested for several weeks. Most of HCIS' beta testing takes 30 to 60 days to do, Griff says.
The compensation providers get for serving
as beta sites varies among software vendors. DataCron provides its software to beta testers free of
charge in exchange for participating in a 90-day beta test. This is equivalent to several thousand
dollars' worth of compensation, says Feldman. HCIS doesn't formally compensate its beta testers.
Their compensation is to get the changes they want made, to have free training, and to get the
software earlier than the general market, Griff says.
If you do decide to serve as a beta site, maximize the experience, home care providers say.
"Take advantage of having easy access to the software developers to learn from them as much as possible," Houseknecht advises. He says he tries to get as many of his colleagues as possible to attend the training sessions HAI puts on during the beta test.
* Mary Laughton, Director of Management of
Information Services, Visiting Nurse Association of the Treasure Coast, 111 35th St., Vero Beach FL 32960.
Telephone: (407) 567-5551.
* Rashel D. Feldman, Director of Operations, Datacron,
977 Oaklawn Ave., Elmhurst IL, 60126. Telephone:
(800) 447-3377.
* David Houseknecht, Director of Finance and Operations, Geisinger Medical Management Corp., 100 N.
Academy Ave., Danville PA 17822-2412. Telephone: (717) 271-8767.
* Ken Pereira, President, Healthcare Automation Inc.,
167 Point St., Providence, RI 02906. Telephone:
(401) 272-6880.
* Steven Griff, President, HCIS, 300 Broadacres Drive,
Bloomfield, NJ 07003. Telephone: (201) 338-2020.
* Bruce G. Harlow, Director of Information Services,
Health Care At Home and St. Thomas Hospice, 7 Salt
Creek Lane No. 101, Hinsdale IL 60521. Telephone:
(708) 920-8300. *
You have reached your article limit for the month. Subscribe now to access this article plus other member-only content.
- Award-winning Medical Content
- Latest Advances & Development in Medicine
- Unbiased Content