How to Evaluate a CEM Without a Feature Checklist

Most CEM evaluations still start the same way: a long feature checklist, a polished demo, and a side-by-side matrix that treats every checkbox as equal.

That process favors marketing vocabulary over operational truth. Two vendors can both “support placements” and deliver completely different experiences for coordinators and clinical sites. Two vendors can both claim “AI” and mean a chatbot versus competency-validated skills assessment.

You need a better method.

Score jobs, not buzzwords

Before you open a vendor site, write down the jobs your program must finish every term:

1. Secure and manage clinical placements with hospital partners
2. Track hours, skills, and evaluations without spreadsheet reconciliation
3. Assess competency consistently across faculty and cohorts
4. Produce accreditation evidence without a site-visit scramble
5. Fit campus identity, reporting, and partner systems your institution already runs

If a capability does not serve one of those jobs, it is decoration.

Prefer evidence over claims

Ask for artifacts, not adjectives:

• Can you see how placements and clearance actually move between school and site?
• Can faculty show a skills assessment workflow that scales without collapsing rater reliability?
• Can leadership open a report that connects clinical performance to program outcomes?
• Can IT verify SSO, provisioning, and a real integration path without a custom science project?

Marketing language is cheap. Workflow walkthroughs and source-backed capability records are not.

Use a public benchmark instead of inventing one

HealthTasks publishes the CEM Benchmark: 9 full-suite platforms across 28 capabilities, with methodology and evidence standards. It exists so programs do not have to rebuild the same comparison from scratch every RFP cycle.

Use it to:

• Align stakeholders on what “full suite” means
• Compare vendors on cited capabilities, not slide claims
• Drill into head-to-heads when you are shortlisting (example: HealthTasks vs Exxat)

The benchmark is not a popularity contest. It is a shared reference for evaluation.

Add interoperability as a first-class criterion

Closed platforms treat hospital and campus systems as afterthoughts. Open platforms publish the interfaces schools and sites need: public APIs, webhooks, enterprise identity, and partner-scoped access.

If your RFP still scores “number of native connectors” higher than “time to a credible integration,” you will buy another silo. For the doctrine behind that standard, see The Open CEM and our interoperability research.

A short evaluation sequence that works

1. Map the five jobs above with clinical coordinators and faculty
2. Score vendors against those jobs using the CEM Benchmark
3. Run demos only on your highest-risk workflows (placements, checkoffs, accreditation evidence)
4. Bring IT in early on identity and data movement
5. Require a pilot plan with success metrics before a multi-year commitment

Feature checklists still have a place as a memory aid. They should not be the decision.

Start here

• CEM Benchmark
• Methodology
• Introducing the CEM Benchmark