Cheering for the Underdog

Most of us find it very easy to root for the underdog. When 14th seeded Ohio beat Georgetown in March Madness, nearly all of us (Georgetown fans excluded) smiled. We can’t help but feel good inside as we watch “Hoosiers” and “Remember the Titans”, cheering for the improbable team that overcomes insurmountable odds to win. We probably all feel like we face those same insurmountable odds at one time or another.

In healthcare IT, I’ve seen big fans of some of the smaller, world-beater vendors like Stentor, eScription, Dynamic Imaging, Ibex, MedHost and many others. You will notice that all of these vendors no longer exist as the smaller “David beats Goliath” vendors that they started out as.

But what about the big guy who has fallen and is making a comeback? Are we allowed to cheer for them, or are we pre-programmed to always cheer against the big vendors? With John Glaser recently named as the new CEO of Siemens Health Services, it seems like a good time to cheer. This feels like the little guy jumping on the back of the biggest kid in the class and getting his lunch money back.

Siemens has made some big strides in the last year with Soarian. Just ask their customers what they think about the new version, C6. They have tripled the number of sites doing CPOE in the last year (agreed it was only 3 previously, but they seem to have gotten over the “hump”). There seems to be significant optimism from those customers.

At KLAS, we cheer on success. For most providers to be successful the next few years, the big players will have to deliver better than ever. So let’s see it. McKesson…eyes are watching you. GE, ditto. Cerner, Epic, Allscripts/Eclipsys, Meditech, we’ll cheer on the favorite if you can deliver.