Many of our customers ask what qualifies for a hotfix, what’s changed about the hotfix process, and why so many fixes are included. After the NextGen ONE User Group Meeting 2015, we wanted to clarify our goals with hotfixes for Core Ambulatory and KBM so our clients know what to expect.
In the past, hotfixes were issued for patient safety, patient health information, meaningful use issues and patient non-clinical urgent issues (large financial impact). We heard from a number of clients that major fixes were taking too long to get to them. In answer, we’ve expanded the hotfix process to include major fixes related to regulatory initiatives (ICD10), and fixes in our current development branch witch affect a large number of clients. Essentially the hotfixes are now frequent maintenance releases.
We’re hearing from our clients that they like having the fixes available when they are ready to test and install a hotfix on their maintenance schedule.
We’ve taken additional steps to test these hotfixes first in our Quality Assurance Department, then with a trial customer, and finally with QA again in the packaged build of the hotfix. This provides validation that the hotfix is effective and ensuring quality. We’ve also performed a root cause analysis on every break requiring a hotfix to make sure we take the necessary actions to prevent breaks in the future.
NextGen Healthcare is actively working to streamline the hotfix process in specific and our software delivery in general. However please expect that hotfixes will continue to be our maintenance vehicle for fixes to our products.
Thank you for your business, and for your patience as we continue to define and deliver high quality software fixes to our client base.