Interoperability Platforms 2019
Shifting Away from Traditional HIE

InterSystems and Allscripts Customers Most Likely to Report Advanced Use Cases

All vendors have advanced users who report interest in interoperability platform capabilities. InterSystems’ advanced customers are furthest along the path, reporting not only population health and data analytics use cases but also precise and innovative data use. They are also the most likely to be satisfied with their vendor’s data-normalization capabilities. Most advanced Allscripts customers also report strong data normalization. These organizations are primarily focused on population health use cases, using access to longitudinal patient records to support population analysis and care management decision-making. Advanced users of Health Catalyst and Orion Health most often use these vendors for more traditional HIE activities, such as clinical alerts and community access to patient records.

Advanced Sites May Not Represent the Typical Experience

Comparing the feedback of advanced customers with that of vendors’ general customer bases reveals a notable drop in performance for three of the four vendors in this report. Allscripts’ customer base sees the most variation; the general customer base reports a much lower level of support for getting the system set up and experiences challenges with dbMotion’s EMR Agent, most often with non-Allscripts EMRs. Health Catalyst delivers consistent support across their customers. Organizations within Health Catalyst’s broader customer base feel the vendor has not kept promises and has been slow to update the technology. Orion Health’s general customer base views the platform as somewhat rigid and does not report innovative use cases. Across the board, InterSystems customers report strong satisfaction.

No Shortcuts for Implementation; InterSystems and Health Catalyst Easiest to Maintain

The speed to value an organization achieves with an interoperability platform is often tied to the complexity of the organization’s intended use cases. It follows that among vendors’ advanced customers, low-effort implementations are rarely reported. When it comes to ongoing maintenance, InterSystems’ advanced customers say the tool set helps them monitor and maintain interfaces. Health Catalyst’s advanced customers feel they have a stable infrastructure, and several report low ongoing maintenance; the two that report more difficult maintenance are larger organizations in a more constant state of onboarding. Among Allscripts’ advanced customers, the maintenance experience varies—the organization with the best experience reports Allscripts being highly involved; others say it requires significant manual effort to establish and maintain data mapping for any changed data sets. Advanced users of the Orion Health system see the fastest average speed to value. Maintaining the system on an ongoing basis requires consistent hands-on effort.

Inconsistent Feature Adoption Weakens Point-of-Care Experience for Allscripts Customers; Most Orion Health Users Rely on Portal

Most vendors have demonstrated the ability to present a wide range of data at the point of care via a portal. The biggest differences in the point-of-care experience are in whether a solution supports automated queries and ingestion of data into the EMR. Orion Health’s advanced customers view data at the point of care mainly through a portal; few report the ability to ingest data. Allscripts customers report that EMR Agent—dbMotion’s tool for automatically putting contextual data in the clinician workflow—is effective. The tool has not been consistently adopted and is more problematic with non-Allscripts EMRs. Few use the send-to-EHR functionality.

InterSystems Customer Success Leading to Highest Purchasing Energy

Within the past three years, KLAS has had conversations with 23 organizations who indicated they were considering replacing their current solution. Though purchasing energy in this market is not as high as it once was, organizations are clearly leaning toward vendors that can provide more advanced interoperability platform capabilities. In this environment, the pressure is on Health Catalyst and Orion Health to help more customers move beyond traditional HIE functionality and attract greater market interest.