You are the HIM department director at a small hospital. Your facility does not have a specific vendor contract management system in place; therefore, it is up to you to measure the performance and effectiveness of the vendors within your department over time. You know that scorecards are a key tool for vendor management, but you do not have the funds to buy any automated products. You need to develop a scorecard template that you can use.

Develop 20 criteria that you would want to measure for your vendors. Examples of criteria include HIPAA Compliant, 24/7 Customer Support, and Strong Reputation. Think healthcare!

After developing your criteria, create at least 3 performance categories and add your criteria to the category that best fits. Examples of performance categories include Quality, Service, and Compliance.

Determine how you are going to rate the criteria. Are you going to weigh the categories and the criteria? You need to be specific and measurable and identify what a good score means and what a bad score means. I highly recommend doing a search online to look for examples of vendor scorecards on the different methods that can be employed.

Create your tool as your finished product.