Cardiology 2020
Have We Reached the Tipping Point in Structured Reporting Adoption?

IBM Watson Health continues to generate strong adoption and satisfaction. Organizations often describe the cardiology solution as the strongest in IBM’s imaging portfolio. Clients report more difficulty deploying structured reporting than in years past, but the product is ultimately functional and easy to navigate. Across modules, IBM receives consistently positive ratings, with almost no customers reporting dissatisfaction. The technology meets customer needs and effectively drives outcomes; further development has been slow and has lessened clients’ enthusiasm.

Epic’s Adoption Is Growing, though Significant Provider Investment Required; Deep Adopters Leave LUMEDX

Between 2016 and 2020, Epic saw the biggest adoption increase compared to other vendors—most notably in nuclear and vascular imaging, where manual extraction has been reduced. Customers who dedicate time and money to build out Cupid post-deployment increasingly feel the product is starting to live up to their expectations due to organizations’ own internal efforts to drive progress; Cupid is not seen as ready out of the box. Epic’s cardiology knowledge is still lacking, and product gaps still exist. Customers commonly use Cupid for scheduling and registry reporting and then fill gaps with other vendors’ structured reporting tools—Epic respondents are about three times more likely to fill gaps than other customer bases. Epic lacks robust structured reporting for pediatric imaging (cath and echo), and EP adoption has been slow. These are the areas most commonly supplemented with non-Epic solutions because of Epic’s slower development progress and the expense required to build out structured reporting modules in Cupid. Customers don’t feel LUMEDX has improved their structured reporting in recent years, and many customers say they are more frustrated than ever. Poor training, declining phone and web support, and a perceived lack of development result in LUMEDX seeing higher-than-average customer turnover and few new sales. Just over one-third of respondents say LUMEDX is not part of their long-term plans, including several of the vendor’s deepest adopters. Many of LUMEDX’s past customers with deeper adoption left for other solutions they felt were more functional and on a better development trajectory.

Reliable Products Help Fujifilm, INFINITT, Siemens Customers Increase Adoption

Fujifilm has seen notable growth in EP structured reporting adoption and maintains high adoption in echo and cath. This is driven by a reliable product and strong integration (the latter a significant improvement in the last year). Fujifilm is held back from broader adoption by development, generally perceived as slow. Clients are not always kept in the loop about the development strategy. This creates a split between customers—a significant portion say Fuji has not proactively shared future plans; others who have insight into planned development are excited about expanded functionality and improvements. Training is another adoption barrier. Multiple customers say they didn’t get enough training or it wasn’t helpful to end users; this hurts energy to deploy new modules and physician willingness to use already-deployed modules. INFINITT, a newer market player with a smaller cardiology customer base, performs well and has improved their offering year over year, leading to deeper adoption. In past years, adoption was low outside echo, but INFINITT has made significant progress in pediatric (echo and cath), EP, and vascular imaging. This is driven by strong clinical usability (e.g., few clicks) and INFINITT’s track record for keeping promises of new functionality. Customers rarely run into downtime or bugs and report that data capture is accurate and efficient. Siemens’ small, loyal customer base is doing more with their vendor after a period of middle-of-the-road performance, making progress with a product they describe as reliable and steady.

GE Healthcare and Philips See More Migration to Newest Platforms; GE Centricity Cardiology Enterprise Solution Satisfaction Is High

GE Healthcare’s new platform, Centricity Cardiology Enterprise Solution, is less broadly or deeply deployed than most other solutions. However, it receives high early ratings from customers—currently, it has the highest overall score of measured solutions. This represents significant improvement from the older DMS platform. Client implementation and training experiences have been mostly positive, supported by expert staff who are highly knowledgeable in cardiology. Ease of use has improved, bolstering depth of adoption for some respondents. Customers are optimistic about the potential of improved usability and functionality to drive significant adoption growth. Philips, once a leader in structured reporting adoption, has seen adoption rates drop since 2016 amid the transition from Xcelera to IntelliSpace. While IntelliSpace took a while to gain cardiology momentum, the tide has begun turning. IntelliSpace clients struggle to get back to their prior state with Xcelera and adopt additional modules. Respondents feel Philips’ resources and execution are insufficient to help drive successful implementation; this sentiment is particularly common among larger organizations. Above-average adoption rates for vascular and pediatric echo are a bright spot.

Hemodynamics:

In a Highly Regulated Market, IBM Watson Health Continues to Lead

IBM Watson Health is the market leader for hemodynamics and has won Best in KLAS for over a decade. Their primary strengths include product functionality and ease of integration with equipment, cardiology software, and the EMR. The development cycle is not as fast as customers would like, and the need for additional customization is a commonly reported gap.

GE Healthcare’s Mac-Lab is one of the stronger solutions in the market today— a departure from the past, when GE Healthcare had the lowest-rated hemodynamics solution. Recent development has helped turn satisfaction around. Customers today report the product is higher quality and has significantly fewer bugs. Integration has also significantly improved. Nickel-and-diming is a continued challenge that hurts perceived value. Customers also want more proactive communication around development and for GE Healthcare to be more willing to own and resolve problems.

Satisfaction with Change Healthcare is hampered by lack of training and high cost. While the technology itself is considered good overall, lack of training hurts perceived usability and can make upgrades more difficult. Frequent nickel-and-diming for system customizations and the high price of upgrades and maintenance are also weaknesses.

Satisfaction with Philips’ hemodynamics solution has declined significantly in the past year. Relationships are somewhat rocky; some respondents say their sales representatives get in the way of a positive vendor relationship. Customers also feel problem resolution is weak and that the vendor is not proactive. Integration issues with equipment and the EMR are another pain point.

What Does “Limited Data” Mean?

Some products are used in only a small number of facilities, some vendors are resistant to providing client lists, and some respondents choose not to answer particular questions. Thus a vendor’s sample size may vary from question to question and may not reach KLAS’ required threshold of 15 unique respondents. When a vendor’s sample size for a particular question is less than 15, the score for that question is marked with an asterisk (*) or otherwise designated as “limited data.” If the sample size is less than 6, no score is shown. Note that when a vendor has a low number of reporting sites, the possibility exists for KLAS scores to change significantly as new surveys are collected.

Overall scores are measured on a 100-point scale and represent the weighted average of several yes/no questions as well as other questions scored on a 9-point scale.

Product Designations Used in This Report

Component [C]: Product that typically includes most but not all components that comprise a complete system or that serves only a subset of the market. Epic’s cardiology solution is marked as component because Epic does not currently offer a cardiology PACS. Additionally, many customers use the Epic cardiology system not as their CVIS but as an extension of the EMR and other cardiology tools.