The hospital software buyer’s checklist.

Fifteen minutes of preparation makes every demo comparable.

• Pick one real (anonymised) patient journey — registration to discharge, or a full IVF cycle — and make every vendor walk it live.
• List the registers you keep today (OPD, IPD, ANC, OT, billing) and roughly how far back they go.
• Note your UHID / patient-numbering format — the software should adapt to it, not the reverse.
• Invite the person who will use the system most (usually your senior front-desk hand), not just the doctors.
• Use the same one-hour agenda for every vendor, so your comparison is fair.

Mark each: shown live / claimed / dodged. Only 'shown live' counts.

• Walk our patient journey end to end in your software, now.
• Print a patient-facing document in the language our patients read.
• Bill the way our families pay — part-payment, EMI schedule, post-dated cheque — with receipts printed.
• Generate today's ICMR Form F from a scan entered during this demo.
• Show the government HMIS monthly report, tallied.
• Export our data to Excel, now — and answer plainly: what happens if we leave you?
• Where does the database live, and show last night's backup.
• Show role-based access: what the receptionist cannot see.
• For IVF: show a double-witnessed vitrification and find a specific straw frozen 'four years ago'.
• For maternity: enrol an ANC patient and show her printable card at 32 weeks.
• Whose branding is on screen and on print — ours or yours?
• Name two things your software does not do.

Compare quotes over 3–5 years, all-in — never the first invoice.

• Every module included, listed by name — and the price of adding one later.
• Data migration from your registers or legacy software.
• Training, by role, on-site and remote.
• Year-two-onward costs: AMC / renewal / subscription — in numbers, not 'standard rates'.
• Hardware assumptions (what you must buy, if anything).
• Support: hours, channel, language and response expectation.
• Data-export and exit terms, in writing, at no extra cost.

Inspection-readiness should be a by-product of daily work, not a month-end scramble.

• ICMR Form F (PC-PNDT) generated inside the clinical workflow.
• ABHA (Ayushman Bharat Health Account) ready registration.
• HMIS monthly Service Delivery Report auto-tallied for export.
• Automatic off-site backup — shown, with the timestamp of the last one.

None of these makes a vendor evil — each one moves risk onto your side of the table.

• Answers in the future tense: 'that's coming next quarter.'
• A rehearsed demo only — reluctance to enter your case live.
• Exports, audits or witnessing 'available on request' rather than shown.
• No written multi-year price, or pressure discounts that expire today.
• No straight answer on what leaving costs.