| Course | MMHA 6600 Healthcare Informatics and Technology Management |
|---|---|
| Week | Week 6 |
| Paper type | Vendor selection memo |
| Length | About 830 words, 5 pages |
| Format | Memo, APA 7 citations |
| School | Walden University |
| Program | Master of Healthcare Administration (MHA) |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MMHA 6600 Week 6
Memorandum
To: Chief Operating Officer and Chief Medical Information Officer, Bramble Creek Hospital
From: Informatics Project Lead (MMHA student)
Date: Month Day, Year
Re: Recommendation to contract with Vendor B for inpatient clinical messaging, based on scripted scenario testing
Recommendation
I recommend that Bramble Creek Hospital contract with Vendor B for secure clinical messaging on all inpatient units, replacing alphanumeric pagers and the unapproved text messaging that our own staff survey found on every unit. Vendor B scored highest on five scripted scenarios drawn from real communication failures at our hospital, though it ranked second of three on the vendors' own feature checklists. The difference between those two rankings is the reason for this memo.
Why We Did Not Choose by Feature List
All three finalists answered our request for proposals with near-identical feature lists: encrypted messaging, group threads, integration with the on-call schedule, read receipts, escalation rules and record integration. Vendor A claimed the most features. A feature list tells us what a product can do in a demonstration; it does not tell us how it behaves when a nurse needs a covering physician at three in the morning and the schedule is wrong. Studies of hospital communication systems have found that new tools can speed messages while creating new problems, such as more interruptions and messages sent to the wrong person, when the tool does not match how teams actually work (Wu et al., 2013). Large health information technology projects succeed when selection is driven by the work to be supported rather than by functionality alone (Cresswell et al., 2013).
We therefore wrote five scenarios from our own incident reports and asked each vendor to run them live, in a test environment loaded with our unit structure and a copy of our on-call schedule, while clinicians scored the results.
The Five Scenarios
Table 1
Scripted Scenarios and What Each Tested
| Scenario | Drawn from | What it tested |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Night nurse messages the covering hospitalist after a schedule swap not entered in the system | Two incident reports last year | Routing when the schedule is wrong, and fallback |
| 2. Critical potassium result must reach the responsible physician within 30 minutes | Laboratory callback policy | Escalation timing and documentation of receipt |
| 3. Rapid response team activation to a med-surg room | Rapid response audits | Group alert speed and acknowledgment |
| 4. Physician sends a medication change by message instead of an order | Pharmacy safety reports | Whether the product discourages orders by message |
| 5. Phone lost on a unit with patient messages visible | Privacy office concern | Remote wipe and lock-screen privacy |
Each scenario was run three times per vendor by a nurse and a physician from our own staff, with an observer timing every step.
Results
Scores below are on a five-point scale averaged across clinician raters; times are medians of three runs. These figures were prepared to illustrate this sample memo.
Table 2
Scenario Scores and Times by Vendor (Illustrative)
| Scenario | Vendor A | Vendor B | Vendor C |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Wrong schedule routing | 2.1 (message went to off-duty physician) | 4.6 (unanswered after 5 minutes, rerouted to unit charge physician) | 3.0 (manual fallback only) |
| 2. Critical result escalation | 3.8, 11 minutes | 4.4, 6 minutes | 4.1, 8 minutes |
| 3. Rapid response group alert | 4.5, 22 seconds | 4.3, 25 seconds | 3.2, 70 seconds |
| 4. Order by message | 2.0 (no prompt) | 4.2 (prompt and link to order entry) | 2.5 (policy banner only) |
| 5. Lost phone privacy | 4.0 | 4.5 | 4.2 |
| Average | 3.3 | 4.4 | 3.4 |
Vendor A's richer feature list did not survive the first scenario: its product trusted the schedule completely and sent a message to a physician who had gone home.
Reading the Results
Scenario 1 decided the outcome. Our incident reports show that schedule errors are not rare; they happen whenever physicians swap shifts informally. Vendor B treats an unanswered message as a signal and escalates after a configurable interval, so the cost of a wrong schedule is a delay of minutes rather than an unanswered nurse. Vendor A and Vendor C both depend on someone noticing the silence.
Scenario 4 also matters. When physicians send medication changes by message, the change is not reconciled with orders and pharmacy cannot verify it. Vendor B detects order-like language and offers a link to the order screen, which supports our policy rather than relying on memory. Clinicians who have used secure messaging report better satisfaction and workflow than with pagers (Przybylo et al., 2014), but those benefits depend on a product that fits the hospital's rules.
Vendor A was faster in the rapid response scenario by three seconds, a difference the observers judged clinically unimportant.
Cost and Contract Terms
Vendor B's five-year cost is within the approved budget and about 8 percent above Vendor A's. I recommend accepting that difference, given the results. Before signing, the contract should guarantee record integration for message documentation of critical results, define uptime and support response times, and require the vendor to rerun Scenario 1 at go-live with our live schedule data.
Decisions Requested
I ask the Chief Operating Officer to approve contract negotiation with Vendor B, and the Chief Medical Information Officer to appoint a physician and nurse lead for implementation.
References
Cresswell, K. M., Bates, D. W., & Sheikh, A. (2013). Ten key considerations for the successful implementation and adoption of large-scale health information technology. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 20(e1), e9-e13. https://doi.org/10.1136/amiajnl-2013-001684
Przybylo, J. A., Wang, A., Loftus, P., Evans, K. H., Chu, I., & Shieh, L. (2014). Smarter hospital communication: Secure smartphone text messaging improves provider satisfaction and perception of efficacy, workflow. Journal of Hospital Medicine, 9(9), 573-578. https://doi.org/10.1002/jhm.2228
Wu, R. C., Lo, V., Morra, D., Wong, B. M., Sargeant, R., Locke, K., Cavalcanti, R., Quan, S. D., Rossos, P., Tran, K., & Cheung, M. (2013). The intended and unintended consequences of communication systems on general internal medicine inpatient care delivery: A prospective observational case study of five teaching hospitals. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 20(4), 766-777. https://doi.org/10.1136/amiajnl-2012-001160
Reading the MMHA 6600 Week 6 instructions
Vendor selection memos ask you to recommend a product and defend the method. State the recommendation first. Explain why the usual evidence, such as feature lists or demonstrations, could not separate the options. Describe a method that tests products against your organization's real work, ideally scenarios drawn from incidents or audits. Show the results in a table with enough detail to see what happened, not only scores. Explain which results decided the choice and why. Address cost and contract terms honestly, including any premium for the winner. Close with specific decisions for named executives. Keep sections short; the readers are deciding, not studying. If one option clearly lost a test, describe what happened in that run so readers trust the result.
Inside the MMHA 6600 Week 6 example
The memo opens with the recommendation and the contrast between feature rank and scenario rank. A rationale section cites Wu and colleagues and Cresswell and colleagues to explain why work-based testing was used. Table 1 lists five scenarios, the incident or audit each came from and what each tested. Table 2 reports clinician scores and timings for three vendors, with a note on what happened in each run. A reading section explains why the wrong-schedule and order-by-message scenarios outweigh a three-second gap in group alerts, citing Przybylo and colleagues. A cost section accepts the premium and lists contract conditions. Two decisions close the memo. Small details, such as a three-second difference in group alerts, are judged openly rather than hidden in averages.
Reading the MMHA 6600 Week 6 rubric
Rubric marks for a vendor memo follow the logic of the decision. A recommendation stated early with a clear reason earns the opening credit. A selection method tied to the organization's own risks, rather than to vendor claims, earns the largest share. Results presented transparently, including where the winner lost, show integrity. Weighing results by importance, not only averaging them, demonstrates judgment. Addressing cost directly and naming contract protections shows managerial completeness. Decisions assigned to the right executives finish the argument. Format matters: memo header, short sections and tables a reader can scan. Sources should support claims about the method, not pad the memo. A memo that admits its preferred vendor scored lower on one scenario tends to earn more trust than one that hides it.
Common MMHA 6600 Week 6 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Vendor memos often copy feature lists into a table and pick the longest. Avoid that. Build scenarios from your organization's own incidents, and ask vendors to run them with your staff watching. Record what happened, not only a score. Decide in advance which scenarios matter most, and say so. Admit where your choice lost. Address cost head-on, since the winner is often not the cheapest. Name the contract terms that protect you. End with a clear request. We can help you turn incident reports into test scenarios and write a selection memo that holds up when the losing vendors ask why. Keep the scenario scripts in an appendix your team can reuse at the next procurement.
Get a MMHA 6600 Week 6 example written to your instructions
Your Week 6 prompt may name a product category, clinical messaging or something else; include it and the rubric, and a selection memo on that category returns in 24-48h, the first one at no charge. All three options will be anonymous composites. A live procurement at your organization is confidential, and the sample stays well clear of it.
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MMHA 6600 Week 6 questions, answered
Where can I find a free MMHA 6600 Week 6 sample paper?
The vendor selection memo, both scenario tables included, is posted in full here.
Why does the MMHA 6600 Week 6 memo reject choosing by feature list?
All three vendors claimed nearly the same features, and a list cannot show how a product behaves when the schedule is wrong.
Which scenario decided the choice?
The wrong-schedule routing test, where the winning product rerouted an unanswered message after five minutes.
How much more does the recommended vendor cost?
About 8 percent more over five years, a premium the memo accepts given the scenario results.
What contract terms does the memo require?
Record integration for critical result messages, uptime and support guarantees, and a rerun of the routing test at go-live.