Healthcare Consulting 2016
Who Can Help with Current and Future Needs?

1. Nordic and Impact Advisors Most Often Mentioned for Demonstrating Critical Success Attributes

Nordic (an Epic-focused firm) excels at providing proficient consultants who are knowledgeable, talented, and possess hands-on experience. Impact Advisors stands out for being proficient, collaborative, and trustworthy; many clients note that instead of delivering prescribed recommendations, the firm engages with clients to learn their specific needs. Optimum Healthcare IT is also frequently mentioned as possessing attributes that providers find critical for success. They are the only firm to receive a high number of mentions across all five attributes and to receive no mentions for struggles.

2. Huron Consulting and Advisory Board Mentioned More for Struggles Than Successes

Comprehensive advisory firms are most often cited for misaligned scope expectations. When desired outcomes for the larger, more complex projects these firms tend to be engaged for aren’t achieved and scopes have to be expanded, clients feel upsold. Huron Consulting is called out for upsell and contract issues. On the other hand, more complex projects also present the opportunity for firms to foster strong collaboration and deep understanding of clients’ specific needs. Advisory Board is noted both for being collaborative and inflexible—a seeming contradiction that indicates the customer experience is heavily dependent on individual resources. Typically engaging in better-defined, more tactical projects, many firms in the other categories deliver very consistent experiences and meet clients' timeline, budget, and resource-quality expectations well, as demonstrated by Impact Advisors, Nordic, and Optimum Healthcare IT.

3. Emerging Needs: Deloitte Seen as Best Positioned to Help, Followed by Impact Advisors, Nordic, and PwC

HIT implementation is still the top area in which providers expect to need consulting help. Optimum is most mentioned as being able to help in this area. Providers are also looking for external expertise to help them navigate new issues. Customers' positive past experiences with Deloitte, Impact Advisors, Nordic, and PwC have positioned the firms well to help with a variety of providers' future needs. Deloitte is mentioned the most and across the most areas. They are thought of mainly for healthcare management consulting (HMC), IT strategy, and optimization work. PwC is considered mainly for their deep, broad expertise in HMC and security services, while Impact Advisors is perceived as having strong tactical and strategic abilities for implementations and IT strategy. Nordic's deep knowledge of and experience with Epic lead them to be considered for Epic implementations and optimizations.

4. Bottom Lines for Top Mentioned Firms

Writer
Elizabeth Pew

Designer
Natalie Jamison