What this means for your practice
Agree how interface changes are communicated, assessed and tested. Keep supplier ownership and supported versions documented so maintenance is planned rather than improvised.
An example to discuss with your team
Review a fictional vendor change notice and identify affected workflows.
Questions to take to your supplier
Use a fictional change notice to trace which enquiries, bookings or reports depend on the connection. Who decides whether work is needed and accepts the tests? The practice should receive a business explanation of the effect, while technical assessment remains with the implementation team.
Agree the working process
Maintain a small record of the connected service, supported interface and supplier contacts responsible for notices. Decide who reviews those notices and how the practice receives an explanation of any business effect. A technical change may affect only one field or operation, so the assessment should identify the actual workflows at risk rather than create a vague general warning. Ask the supplier to describe what testing and possible changes are needed before the effective date. Include a notice with little lead time in a planning exercise to expose reliance on a single unavailable person.
Keep supported versions and unresolved questions visible in the maintenance plan. Where a supplier offers an alternative interface, confirm its access and behaviour before assuming migration is routine. After an update, verify the receiving outcomes using the agreed examples. The practice should see a maintained connection with understood responsibilities, rather than discover upstream changes only when staff notice that expected work has stopped arriving.
How to check the result
Measure unassessed supplier changes approaching their effective date.
Turn reading into a next step
Your action checklist
Work through these checks with your team or supplier. Tick the ones you have resolved and leave unknowns open.
Record what you know, what is still missing and the answer you need from your team or supplier.
Use project decisions only, without personal, patient or confidential details. Entries stay in this page and are not submitted to Kay & Co. Copy or download before leaving; this page does not save your notes.
Further reading
These sources provide background for the topic. The practice examples and checklist are illustrative planning suggestions from Kay & Co.
Related guides
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