Not all hosting providers are created equal. There are many factors that play a part in the security and credibility of a hosting provider. When choosing an IT partner that is capable and worthy of hosting your most valuable business data, rely on this guide.
How much experience does the vendor have supporting remotely hosted applications?
- How long has it been doing this?
- Does it work with or subcontract with any implementation or support partners? If so, how long has the partner been doing this?
- How many client sites and users does the vendor currently support?
- Is it okay to speak with the vendor’s clients?
What is the vendor’s approach to disaster and data recovery?
- Does it have a remote failover hot site for when the server goes down?
- How quickly will the ASP application be available again if the data center becomes inaccessible?
- Does the vendor back up data each night?
- Does it comply with industry standards for fire detection/prevention, water damage protection, and climate control?
- Does it have liability insurance?
How does the vendor protect patient confidentiality and privacy?
- Does it comply with industry standards for physical security and access?
- Are data for each client stored on separate servers?
- Does the system maintain an audit trail, accessible to the client, of all accesses to the system, including both edits and views of patient data?
- Does the company have a designated HIPAA Privacy Officer?
What are the contract terms?
- How many years does the contract cover?
- What are permissible causes for terminating the contract?
- What provisions has the vendor made for data transfer when the contract expires or terminates?
- What is the vendor’s client retention rate?
What implementation and support services does the vendor provide?
- If a client needs additional support, how is that distinguished from support covered under the contract?
- To what extent can the ASP application be configured to support specific workflows at a particular physician practice?
- What provisions are there for ensuring system availability, reliability, and quick software and hardware response?
- How frequently does planned downtime or unavailability occur?
- What factors affect a practice’s connectivity with the remote data center?
- Are there penalties when the vendor does not maintain minimum levels of availability?
- How often does the vendor release upgrades? What do upgrades require from the client?
- What types of ongoing support does the vendor provide (web-based, telephone, on-site)?
- What are the hours of support?
- What provisions are there for ensuring fast service and response?
What costs are associated with the application and other needs?
- Are costs calculated on a per-user, per-physician, or per-visit basis?
- Is user hardware included?
- Are there any third-party licensing costs?
- What costs are associated with integrating a particular practice management system with the
- ASP application? With other applications?
- Are there any transaction-based or connectivity fees?
- Are implementation services included? If they are an extra expense, what is the billing rate?
- Are application upgrades included?
- Are support services included? If they are an extra expense, what is the billing rate?