Questions to ask in a hospital-management software demo

The best questions in a hospital-management software demo ask the presenter to complete work your staff recognise. Follow one fictional patient from reception to the consultation and payment, then introduce a problem: a similar name, a partial payment or a lost connection. Watch what the next staff member can actually find.

For an owner, medical director or practice manager choosing software for a small Nigerian hospital, a feature list is a starting point. A demonstration should leave you with a clear account of what the team can do, what needs preparation and what must remain in another workflow.

Send a short scenario before the meeting

Describe your practice size, staff roles, devices and the task that causes the most difficulty. Bring the people who perform that task. A receptionist or nursing lead may notice an awkward handover that the person approving the purchase never sees.

The ONC demonstration guide uses prepared scenarios and structured evaluation. It is a US resource published in 2016, with sections about US requirements that do not apply automatically in Nigeria. The questions here are our adaptation for a small practice's records workflow.

A suitable fictional scenario is: a returning patient arrives without their card, sees the nurse and doctor, receives an external lab request, then pays part of the bill. No real patient folder is needed to demonstrate those steps.

1. Can reception find the returning patient?

Ask the presenter to search using an existing folder number, then try the same task without the card. Introduce two similar names and ask how staff confirm the correct person before creating a visit.

Watch whether the patient and today's attendance remain clear when moving between screens. Ask what happens if reception starts to register a person who already exists. A warning should lead to a reviewable decision, not an assumption that every matching name is the same person.

RizCare supports existing folder numbers and warns on a matching full name and date of birth. It does not automatically merge records. Ask to see the warning, including what staff should do when it is inconclusive.

2. Can each staff member perform their own part?

Use separate reception, nursing and doctor accounts in the demonstration. Ask the nurse to find the visit and record their work, then ask the doctor to locate it and complete a general consultation.

Check who can read clinical notes and who can change them. In RizCare, an administrator account alone does not grant clinical-note access. Reception and billing roles have different access from clinical roles.

Ask to sign a fictional note and then correct it. RizCare preserves the signed original and records an amendment separately. Our record-correction guide explains why this is a useful behaviour to inspect.

3. Does the workflow match the services you provide?

Ask for an ordinary general-practice consultation without a pregnancy or admission. Then identify any maternity or inpatient work you need separately.

RizCare's foundation supports general practice, while maternity and basic admissions are optional. A basic admissions register is not a complete ward record, and maternity support should not be assumed to include labour charts or delivery documentation.

If you refer tests externally, ask how the request, returned report information and clinical review are recorded. Do not infer a live laboratory connection from a results screen. RizCare records external referrals and report review; it does not provide laboratory integration.

Prescriptions can be recorded by a doctor. Ask what happens after that in your practice, rather than assuming that prescribing also covers stock control or medication administration.

4. Can the next shift explain a partly paid bill?

Ask to create a fictional invoice for 15,000 naira, record a confirmed payment of 9,000 naira and show the remaining 6,000 naira. These are demonstration amounts, not suggested hospital prices.

Have another authorised staff account find the same invoice. Ask where the payment method, reference and recording staff member appear. Then ask what an authorised person does if a payment was recorded in error.

RizCare records manual cash and transfer receipts and partial balances. It does not move money, verify a bank transfer or process a refund. Recording a reversal changes the financial record; any actual money movement is handled separately. HMO claims also remain outside RizCare.

5. What can this device do without internet?

Ask the presenter to explain the preparation first, then disconnect a prepared device and save a fictional entry. Reopen the app and find the entry. Reconnect and check that it reaches the practice once.

Ask which records are available offline, when offline access expires and what happens if another device has newer information. RizCare requires online enrolment and access renewal, and offline work is limited to what the device and staff account can access.

Do not accept a local save as evidence that another staff member has received the entry. Check both ends of the handover. This is particularly useful for notes and payments that staff might otherwise enter twice.

6. What happens after device loss or inaccessible data?

Ask for a recovery demonstration separately from the internet-outage demonstration. The 2025 SAFER contingency guide distinguishes preparation, backup testing and staff downtime training. These are general implementation practices, not Nigerian certification requirements.

For RizCare, an encrypted device export cannot be imported back into the app. Discuss how that limitation affects recovery arrangements before relying on live records. A demonstration should make this decision concrete, including who helps and what staff do while information is unavailable.

Leave with a decision record

For each essential task, record one of four outcomes in your own evaluation notes: demonstrated by your staff, demonstrated only by the presenter, requires preparation, or outside scope. Note the unresolved question and who will answer it. These categories are our suggested evaluation method, not an industry scoring standard.

Ask for the subscription basis, onboarding work, training arrangements and support coverage in writing. The Health IT Playbook includes planning, implementation and costs in the selection process. A working screen does not settle those arrangements.

Use our paper-to-digital guide when turning the demonstration findings into a transition plan. For a RizCare demonstration, send the fictional scenario and the three tasks your team most needs to inspect.