Clinic software migration checklist

What is in the checklist

It is a short, printable document. It does not assume any particular software. Use it with Praxia or with anyone else.

• Before you start. Who owns the move, what must not stop, and how long you can run two systems side by side.
• What to export. Patients, contact details, appointment history, last attended dates, recalls and waitlists, notes, invoices, payment history, forms and letters. For each item, a prompt to ask whether your current system can export it, in what format, and who holds the file.
• What usually does not move. Why clinical notes, invoice history and attachments often stay behind, and what to do about your record-keeping obligations.
• Checks after the load. Counts, spot checks field by field, duplicate patients, date formats, and a short list of patients to look up by hand.
• Messaging. Why reminders and recall messages should stay off until the data has passed its checks, and how to confirm opt-outs came across.
• Change-over day. A simple run sheet for the front desk.

Four questions to ask any software vendor

• What exactly can you load for me, and what can you not?
• Has your migration been run for a clinic like mine, or only on sample data?
• What will I still need to keep from my old system, and for how long?
• What does it cost to move, and what does it cost to leave later?

Ask us the same four. Here is our honest answer today: for clinics moving from Ovatu we have tooling that has been rehearsed on sample data and not yet run for an external clinic. For Cliniko, Nookal and other systems we start from what you can export. Cost of moving has not been decided. See switching for the full picture.

How to use it

Work through it with the person who runs your front desk and the person who looks after your books. The front desk knows what breaks on a Monday morning, and the books know which records you are required to keep.

Run it in this order. First, list what you hold today and where it lives. Second, decide what you need in the new system on day one and what can stay in the old one. Third, ask each vendor the four questions above and write down the answers. Fourth, agree the checks you will run before anything is switched on.

Keep the answers. If a vendor says something will move and it does not, you want the original words in front of you.

What a migration cannot fix

A move does not clean your data. Duplicate patients, old phone numbers and inconsistent visit types come across with everything else. The checklist includes a short tidy-up list for the weeks before the load, because it is much cheaper to fix a duplicate once than to carry it into a new system.

A move also does not remove the need to keep records. If historical notes or invoices stay behind, your obligations do not shrink. Plan how you will keep access to them, and check the period that applies to your profession.

Who it is for

Clinic owners and practice managers in Australian allied health who are weighing up a move and want to know what the job involves before they talk to anyone. It is for comparing your options, whichever vendor you end up with.

If you want to read before you download, the guide to switching clinic software without losing records covers the same ground in prose.

Get the checklist

Leave your details and you can download the checklist straight away. We use them to give you the checklist and, if you ask, to follow up about switching.

How we handle your details is set out in our privacy policy.

Prefer to talk it through? Request a walkthrough.

Where Praxia is today

Praxia is being piloted with Evolution Medical Care, a clinic run by Praxia’s founders, and is being onboarded to it now. Praxia Clinical Solutions is an Australian company, currently in incorporation.

We do not publish customer counts, testimonials or results, because there are none to publish yet.