Investor Newsletter February 2023

KLAS Market Insights

The Importance of Security and Privacy in Healthcare

Despite ongoing economic pressures and tight margins in 2023, healthcare systems are making significant investments in healthcare IT, particularly security and privacy software/services. Historically, this area has been highly commoditized; however, due to recent high-profile cybersecurity incidents, data breaches, and ransomware attacks, cybersecurity is now a higher priority for many healthcare organizations. The risks have increased exponentially as organizations have moved from paper records to digital databases, adopted the Internet of Things for medical devices, and inherited complexities and vulnerabilities after merging with and acquiring independent practices and hospitals. Cybersecurity is now a must-have to prevent the loss of patient data and avoid service outages from ransomware.

The importance of cybersecurity is emphasized in a 2022 study where KLAS collaborated with Bain to survey more than 280 healthcare organizations. 44% of respondents say security and privacy software is one of their top-five priorities for investments in the next year. Despite this high energy, the security and privacy market does not have many large vendors and is not as competitive as other markets, like revenue cycle. This is partially because few firms can address the unique cybersecurity needs and challenges that healthcare organizations have. Additionally, the security and privacy market is still in the early stages of its lifecycle and will hopefully be poised for significant growth in the coming years.

KLAS Investment Perspective

Registration Is Open for DHIS 2023!

The 2023 Digital Health Investment Symposium (DHIS) will be held September 12 and 13 at the majestic Stein Eriksen Lodge in Park City, UT. Against the backdrop of stunning fall colors and the Wasatch mountains, this strategic executive retreat will provide attendees the opportunity to establish and reinforce valuable relationships across the industry, learn about development priorities, and collaborate to solve difficult problems.

As one of the premier conferences of the season, this invite-only event is one you won’t want to miss! Click here for more information. If you or a member of your team is interested in attending, please message the KLAS Investment Advisory team at investorservices@klasresearch.com.

KLAS Reports—Recently Published & Upcoming

KLAS Emerging Solutions Reports

Each week, dozens of new companies are knocking on the doors of provider organizations and health systems to present their latest innovative solutions. KLAS publishes 90+ individual reports annually which provide early performance data on these solutions designated as emerging, disruptive, or innovative. To view the KLAS reports library, visit our website.

Healthwise Patient Education: Emerging Solutions Spotlight 2023

An individual’s health is heavily affected by their own health literacy. Engagement with quality health education resources can help people stay healthier, help them recognize when they need care, and minimize unnecessary readmissions. This report looks at feedback from healthcare organization customers using Healthwise’s patient education solution, which provides organizations with educational content and the means to engage patients in that content.

Market Specialty Reports

KLAS publishes 75+ specialty reports annually, providing market insight based on customer perceptions of and experiences with the vendor/consultant solutions they employ. KLAS also validates industry trends, emerging technologies, purchasing decision insights, and market energy.

Interested in purchasing a KLAS report? Contact the KLAS Investment Advisory team at investorservices@klasresearch.com.

Automated Prior Authorization 2023: What Impact Do Automated Prior Authorization Solutions Provide?

Prior authorization is mandated by payers to ensure that certain clinical procedures and medications being ordered are necessary. To alleviate the heavy administrative burden this requirement causes, healthcare organizations have adopted automated prior authorization solutions. For this report, KLAS interviewed 30 respondents from 26 unique organizations to understand their experiences using these solutions and what outcomes they have seen.

Upcoming Specialty & Emerging Technology Reports

ERP 2023: An Update on Cloud Vendors’ Performance


With regulatory and financial pressures increasing, many healthcare organizations continue to move to cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions, utilizing them to boost efficiency and provide insights into how business processes can improve. To implement and optimize these solutions, organizations rely on their ERP vendors, who sometimes provide an inconsistent customer experience. This report examines (1) customer adoption across the three ERP pillars—financials, human capital management (HCM), and supply chain management—(2) the performance of enterprise ERP vendors, and (3) customer optimism about how vendors will perform in the future.

Independent Ambulatory Patient Portals 2023: Seeking to Empower Patients

Patient portals (tools used by healthcare providers to engage with patients) can greatly influence a patient’s ability to seek and receive care. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, healthcare organizations have become keenly interested in technology that gives patients ownership of their health and enhances office efficiencies. Though KLAS has historically looked at how portals perform in the IDN setting, this report examines the experience of customers in the independent ambulatory space to share their perspective and help other such organizations understand portals’ impact on patient care.

IT Advisory Services 2023: What Services Do Firms Offer and How Consistently Do They Perform?

In the IT advisory space, many firms perform well, but the breadth of their expertise varies—some firms offer many services, while others focus on a specific area. This report examines the breadth of firms’ validated services as well as client satisfaction and performance consistency. To provide better transparency into IT advisory services, KLAS has broken them into the following four segments: IT planning and assessment, revenue cycle optimization, clinical optimization, and analytics advisory services. 

Long-Term Care EMR 2023: Which Vendors Are Delivering High Value and Robust Technology?

New and more stringent regulations have increased documentation burden for long-term care (LTC) provider organizations, and this combined with other factors (COVID-19, staff turnover, increased LTC demand) has intensified clinician and nurse burnout in LTC. As a result, many organizations are pressing their LTC EMR vendors to address documentation challenges, simplify workflows while mitigating costs, and improve satisfaction in a market that has seen an overall decline. This report highlights which LTC EMR vendors are best delivering the quality, integration, and training needed to get the most value out of their systems.

Small-Hospital Patient Accounting 2023: Meeting the Needs of Smaller Hospitals

Small hospitals are changing their EMRs and patient accounting systems at a greater rate than that of their large-hospital counterparts. Most market selection energy is going to Oracle Health (Cerner) and MEDITECH as well as Epic; small hospitals also use other vendors like athenahealth, CPSI, and MEDHOST. While many vendors offer viable clinical systems, there are significant differences across the customer experience with patient accounting that should not be overlooked by small hospitals. To help these organizations make more informed decisions, this report examines feedback from small hospitals (=250 beds) about their patient accounting solutions.

Healthjump Interoperability Platform: First Look 2023

The need for reliable information continues to grow, and in order to remain attractive in the market, healthcare IT organizations need interoperability partners to facilitate quick, standardized, and reliable information exchange. This report provides a first look at Healthjump’s interoperability platform by examining satisfaction and feature adoption among vendor customers.

Janus Platform: Emerging Solutions Spotlight 2023

Healthcare organizations continue to feel the burden of revenue cycle management (RCM), committing significant resources to collect payments amid rising labor costs, staff turnover, and administrative waste. Janus Health offers the Janus Platform to help increase and accelerate cost collections more efficiently, utilizing AI and automation to help organizations understand and optimize RCM workflow processes. This report examines customer satisfaction with the Janus Platform.

National Medical Billing Services: First Look 2023

Over the last few years, ambulatory RCM service firms have expanded and gained momentum in the outpatient market as provider organizations’ interest in RCM services has increased. The growth of non-EMR vendors in this space is especially notable. This report looks at National Medical Billing Services’ (NMBS) outsourced, surgery-focused RCM offerings and how satisfied ambulatory surgical centers are with these services.

NextGen Behavioral Health Suite: First Look 2023

Although behavioral healthcare has unique regulations and processes, there is a need for behavioral care to be closely integrated with physical care. NextGen Healthcare seeks to help customers achieve this with NextGen Behavioral Health Suite, saying they intend to offer quality service and strong integrated care options to customers. To understand the vendor’s performance, this report examines the satisfaction and experience of customers using Behavioral Health Suite.

PracticeSuite (Practice Management): First Look 2023

Vendors in the ambulatory space continue to work toward the goal of meeting the diverse and ever-changing needs of provider organizations. This report takes a first look at the PracticeSuite PM solution and how well it delivers to ambulatory practices and uses feedback from both direct provider and MSO customers. The data focuses on customer satisfaction and feature utilization among these customers.

Solarity: Emerging Solutions Spotlight 2023

Healthcare organizations face the challenge of effectively managing and storing disparate forms of clinical data in a way that makes the information accessible and usable in the EHR. Solarity’s automated platform and services aim to reduce the cost and manual labor related to processing patient data. The platform uses AI, including optical character recognition technology, to capture and accurately index clinical documentation. This report examines customer satisfaction and experiences with Solarity.

To make a purchase or find more information on KLAS reports, contact the KLAS Investment Advisory team at investorservices@klasresearch.com.

KLAS Events 2023

KLAS Global Summit
June 6–8, 2023
Vila Vita Parc | Porches, Portugal

This invite-only event is limited to 150 executive-level attendees and is a unique opportunity to interact with global healthcare leaders who are mutually focused on improving the delivery of healthcare. If you are interested in attending the Global Summit, please email investorservices@klasresearch.com.

KLAS Digital Health Investment Symposium (DHIS)
September 12–13, 2023
Stein Eriksen Lodge | Park City, UT

Registration opens early February 2023! Reserve these dates for the must-attend event of the season. If you are interested in attending DHIS23, please message investorservices@klasresearch.com.

KLAS In-Attendance Events 2023

ViVE
March 26–29, 2023
Nashville, TN

To request a meeting, please email us directly or send a message to investorservices@klasresearch.com.

HIMSS
April 17–21, 2023
Chicago, IL

To request a meeting, please email us directly or send a message to investorservices@klasresearch.com.