Drug Diversion Monitoring 2021
Energy High for Next-Generation Solutions (A Decision Insights Report)
In the last 12 months, KLAS has interviewed 41 healthcare organizations that have recently purchased a drug diversion monitoring solution or are in the process of doing so. This represents a sharp increase in market activity. Several factors are fueling the growth, including greater awareness of the opioid crisis as well as a greater need during the COVID-19 pandemic for visibility and automation when it comes to managing medication inventories. Additionally, organizations are considering several newer technology options purported to offer more intuitive workflows and more complete investigational tools. This report examines recent and upcoming drug diversion monitoring purchase decisions to determine which vendors are generating the highest interest.
Findings in this report come from KLAS’ Decision Insights data, which monitors which vendors are being replaced, considered, and purchased and what factors drive these decisions. A future report planned for early 2022 will examine the satisfaction of current customers in areas such as integration, functionality, and ease of use. Early ratings from that research can be found here.
Kit Check Leads Considerations & Selections Due to Advanced Technology
Organizations that consider Kit Check view the solution as well developed, with broad capabilities and strong ease of use. These and other benefits—including broad system integration and a formal partnership with Omnicell—lead 61% of organizations that consider Kit Check to ultimately select them. Additionally, a few customers say they chose Kit Check for their unique approach, which includes well-built investigational tools as well as proactive AI identification. Potential buyers who end up choosing other vendors often cite Kit Check’s cost or lack of a fully enterprise solution as the deciding factor. BD and Imprivata are also frequently chosen by customers who consider them. BD is often chosen by those seeking an enterprise medication management strategy (more details on next page). Common reasons the Imprivata solution (recently acquired from FairWarning) is chosen include strong integration and the vendor’s helpful support structure (customers are assigned a representative to provide guidance and support).
Most Legacy Medacist Customers Leaving for Other Vendors
The solution most often being replaced is the legacy RxAuditor product from Medacist. In addition to describing the product as clunky and missing some needed functionality, customers cite cost, poor integration, and poor support from Medacist as reasons they are leaving (see charts on next page). Because of their poor overall experience, most legacy customers will move to other vendors rather than to Medacist’s newer RxAuditor Investigate. The two respondents who are likely to choose RxAuditor Investigate cite analytics and their existing relationship with the vendor as reasons. Though Medacist has formally requested that they be excluded from KLAS research, their products will continue to be monitored as market interest warrants. Other vendors also have customers considering leaving, though at much lower rates. The three Omnicell customers that are considering leaving most commonly cite clunky technology, missing functionality, and a lack of support from Omnicell. Customers report that Omnicell is no longer developing either of their acquired drug diversion monitoring products, and Omnicell has recently partnered to offer their customers the drug diversion monitoring solution from Kit Check. On the whole, Imprivata is gaining more customers than they are losing. The two organizations moving to other vendors both cite poor integration as a top factor in their decision to leave.
Very Large Organizations Most Commonly Choose BD & Kit Check
When purchasing a diversion monitoring solution, very large organizations (over 1,000 beds) most often select either BD or Kit Check, who are also frequently chosen by small and midsize organizations. Larger organizations that choose BD often do so for the vendor’s full suite of well-integrated pharmacy products (smaller organizations also choose BD for this reason). Larger customers appreciate BD’s product bundling, which they say results in a lower price per product. Many buyers acknowledge the solution’s development gaps but feel that strong integration and an enterprise medication management strategy outweigh the potential challenges; additionally, they are optimistic the system will continue to evolve. Many organizations that considered but did not select BD wanted a system that was more proven. Larger organizations that choose Kit Check cite many of the same general strengths already described on the previous page. LogicStream Health—an established pharmacy vendor that is newer to diversion monitoring—has a small base in the diversion market and is less often considered. The two large organizations in this sample that selected LogicStream Health highlight the vendor’s excellent relationships and good technology.
HelioMetrics & Invistics See Few Selections
Though often considered, HelioMetrics and Invistics are less likely than other vendors to be selected, with integration being a common weakness. Organizations that pass on HelioMetrics often cite poor integration and say the technology—which is used mostly for retrospective reporting—is weaker than competitors’. Organizations that consider but do not select Invistics often note that they are looking for more integration and a more modern user interface.
Protenus is one of the most frequently considered vendors in new deals and is often chosen by large organizations. When the vendor is chosen, price is often mentioned as a determining factor. Organizations that choose other vendors over Protenus cite integration and the lack of a full pharmacy suite.
Vendors at a Glance
(Vendors ordered high to low by market energy)
Market energy is a composite of the following factors, with validated wins being weighted most heavily: number of validated wins, win rate, and number of considerations.
“I am a big proponent of using Bluesight for Controlled Substances because of the way the vendor has approached drug diversion. Our current drug diversion vendor collaborates with Kit Check. . . . There are multiple things we find beneficial about the system. One thing is the relationship we have built between Kit Check and our other vendor. But the biggest reason we want to switch to Kit Check’s product is the vendor’s approach to finding behaviors and creating risk scores using the technology they are using. We looked at the product and connected with the vendor. All of our directors have loved the product in the demos. We have decided to see how quickly we can bring the system into our hospital network.” —Manager (organization selected Kit Check)
“We are moving to a module that is offered by BD. It is overall less expensive than our other system as a standalone solution. We have integration with BD’s product, and that makes us feel a little bit like we are in a better place.” —Vice president (organization selected BD)
“Imprivata had a dedicated person to help manage and monitor the account, and that was one of the reasons that we went with Imprivata. We never had a diversion detection system before. I thought it would be better to have someone that we could speak to directly versus having to figure everything out by myself. I liked the look of Imprivata’s system better than the other products we were considering.” —Director (organization selected Imprivata)
“Protenus’ system had a cleaner UI than the other system we looked at. I was able to show how consistent the system’s production was and how much we relied on the post-production data from another Protenus system. I had already presented the privacy module to my steering committee for a good few years before we made the decision to bring in the drug diversion program. I recommended the drug diversion program because the vendor was much more responsive than any other drug diversion vendor we had in the past.” —Director (organization selected Protenus)
“We looked at HelioMetrics’ system. We let our end users vote based on the demos and rank the systems in their order of preference. HelioMetrics’ system came out just ahead of another. HelioMetrics has been really great because they have worked with us to build additional dashboards, additional reporting structures, and things to kind of help us in our process of attempting to start to change the practice. We have already caught individuals who were diverting because of the new program. We saw data that we had never seen before and just couldn’t possibly pull based on what we already had. We are working toward standardizing the reporting structures to our local leadership. We are looking to standardize now that we have metrics around compliance. . . . People preferred the visualizations over some of the other products’ visualizations that we saw.” —Manager (organization selected HelioMetrics)
“We looked at Invistics. Invistics was a little further behind. They have a good analytics program, but the actual application was a little bit dated. There were a couple of things that Invistics didn’t have from an investigation standpoint of being able to capture details and save them within the program.” —Manager (organization considered but did not select Invistics)
“LogicStream Health’s customer support is second to none. They are a small, new company, and they strive very hard to have good customer support. We already had a relationship with LogicStream Health, so we decided to give their system a try, and it has been pretty good.” —Manager (organization selected LogicStream)
“We just have never been successful in getting reports written between our EMR and RxAuditor. The vendor was asking for information that we couldn’t get them. Part of that problem was a hospital problem; business intelligence people are hard to find. But doing audits with RxAuditor is a very manual process. I have tons of spreadsheets of people, and we are looking forward to having everything under one sign-on.” —Analyst/coordinator (customer is moving to another vendor)
“The latest word from Omnicell is that they are not going to invest any more into Omnicell Analytics and that they are partnering with Kit Check for something better. I am a little disappointed, but we aren’t fully integrated with the MAR currently.” —Director (customer is leaving Omnicell Analytics)
About This Report
All references in this report to organizations’ purchasing motivations come from KLAS’ Decision Insights data. Since 2017, KLAS has been gathering information as to which vendors are being replaced, considered, and purchased and what factors drive these decisions. KLAS Decision Insights data does not represent a comprehensive census or win/loss market share study. Rather, it is intended to help organizations understand which vendors have market energy and why. The data set in this report comes from 41 organizations that are making or have recently made a drug diversion monitoring purchase decision validated by KLAS between October 2020 and October 2021.
Writer
Elizabeth Pew
Designer
Jessica Bonnett
Project Manager
Robert Ellis
This material is copyrighted. Any organization gaining unauthorized access to this report will be liable to compensate KLAS for the full retail price. Please see the KLAS DATA USE POLICY for information regarding use of this report. © 2024 KLAS Research, LLC. All Rights Reserved. NOTE: Performance scores may change significantly when including newly interviewed provider organizations, especially when added to a smaller sample size like in emerging markets with a small number of live clients. The findings presented are not meant to be conclusive data for an entire client base.