Investor Newsletter May 2022

From the KLASroom

Virtual Care Platforms

During COVID-19, the number of virtual care platform vendors increased significantly. With multiple vendors, healthcare organizations have no shortage of choices. As with many other market segments, KLAS is closely monitoring the impact of customer satisfaction as well as the potential for an EMR-centric solution to dominate the market segment. KLAS structures data and responses for vendors into the following six pillars: culture, relationship, operations, product, value, and loyalty. The analysis below is a short overview of the loyalty pillar metrics for virtual care platforms. Looking only at this pillar allows us to see what is happening but does not fully explain the why or the next steps for virtual care platforms.

KLAS Report Highlights

KLAS Emerging Technology

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 80–90 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.

Recent Emerging Technology Report Sneak Peek

Specialty Reports Published April 2022

KLAS publishes 70–80 specialty reports annually, providing market insight based on customer perceptions of and experiences with the vendor and consultant solutions they employ. KLAS also validates industry trends, emerging technologies, purchasing decision insights, and market energy. Interested in KLAS report purchase options? Contact the KLAS Investment Advisory team at investorservices@klasresearch.com.

Revenue Integrity/Underpayment Services 2022: Finding the Firm That’s Right for Your Organization

Overall, healthcare organizations are highly satisfied with the firms they engage to tackle difficult revenue-collection issues, such as underpayments, denials, and complex government reimbursement requirements. However, different firms focus on different revenue integrity areas, making side-by-side comparisons difficult. To help organizations identify which firms best fit their needs, this report (1) looks at how well firms educate clients on ways to proactively avoid missed revenue, (2) highlights firms’ client-validated areas of expertise, and (3) examines each firm’s specific strengths and opportunities for improvement.

^{Note: The data in this report comes from two different surveys. Not all respondents answered both surveys, so sample sizes vary throughout the report. See About This Report for more information.}

Recently Released and Upcoming KLAS Specialty & Emerging Technology Reports

Data Archiving 2022:
In a Market with No Clear Leader,Who Is Being Selected and Why?

Data archiving solutions—which allow organizations to archive and access historical data from retired legacy software—continue to be in high demand. For the first time, KLAS has validated organizations replacing their existing archive solutions as they seek to consolidate archives, cut costs, and identify systems that can meet their needs for various types or volumes of data. To better understand what factors are influencing purchase decisions in this market with no clear leader, this report examines 23 recent or upcoming data archiving purchase decisions validated by KLAS between January 2020 and December 2021. For additional context, satisfaction data from current customers is also included. It should be noted the decisions in this report are not representative of all data archiving purchase decisions made in the last several years.

Go-Live Support 2022:
Matching the Right Firm to Your Implementation Needs

Firms that provide go-live support for HIT implementations continue to consistently deliver high client satisfaction. Across the board, these firms are highly skilled and knowledgeable, making it rare for healthcare organizations to report a poor experience. Instead of asking which firm provides high-quality go-live support, organizations must decide which firm is the best fit for their organization.

Healthcare Safety, Risk, & Compliance Management 2022:
Adoption, Capabilities & Performance

Healthcare organizations are increasingly interested in taking a broad, enterprise approach to safety, risk, and compliance management. Additionally, multiple vendor mergers and acquisitions in the last few years have many organizations considering their future. This report (KLAS’ first on safety, risk, and compliance management specifically) examines the state of the market, including an early look at the energy around an enterprise strategy. How broadly are organizations adopting their solutions today? What vendors are furthest along on the path toward a unified platform? Which are delivering consistently today, both at a solution level and in terms of support and vendor/client partnership?

Patient Perspectives on Patient Engagement Technology 2022:
Identifying Opportunities to Align Patient, Organization, and Vendor Priorities

The pandemic has emphasized the need for healthcare organizations to better accommodate patients’ needs and decrease barriers to effective care. However, patients are frequently absent from discussions around healthcare information technology (HIT). In KLAS’ previous report on the patient perspective, we discovered a lack of alignment between patients’ engagement technology priorities and those of provider organizations and vendors. Since then, KLAS has sought to gain a deeper understanding of what is needed from vendors and providers to drive greater alignment with patients. This report seeks to highlight the patient perspective and is one of many KLAS initiatives aimed at more deeply understanding and measuring patients’ perspective on HIT.

Points of Light 2022:
Recognizing Successful Payer/Provider Collaborations

Despite their common goal of enabling efficient, effective healthcare, payer and provider organizations often find themselves at odds, struggling to navigate the intersections where disparate processes and systems converge. The goal of KLAS’ new Payer/Provider Initiative is to help reduce this friction by facilitating trust, collaboration, and alignment between payers, providers, and HIT vendors.

As part of the initiative, the annual Points of Light awards celebrate success stories—or “points of light”—from payers, providers, and vendors who have partnered together to reduce costs and inefficiencies and improve the patient experience. 14 such collaborations were awarded a 2022 Points of Light award, and their strategies and outcomes are shared in this report to illustrate the art of the possible. The report’s Executive Overview provides a high-level summary of the types of challenges tackled and the outcomes achieved, while the full report provides an in-depth case study of each collaboration.

US Hospital Market Share 2022:
Strong Purchasing Energy across Large, Small, and Standalone Hospitals

EMR purchasing continued to be high in 2021, despite hospitals and health systems grappling with inflation, lingering complications from COVID-19, overburdened clinicians, and a historic nurse shortage. This report examines trends in EMR purchases that occurred in the US from January–December 2021.

Codoxo Forensic AI Platform:
Emerging Technology Spotlight 2022

Each year, billions of dollars are put toward healthcare, yet much of it is lost to fraudulent claims and bad payments. To help payer organizations control costs, Codoxo’s Forensic AI Platform provides actionable insights that identify existing or emerging fraud, waste, and abuse (FWA) issues. This report looks to validate the Codoxo customer experience.

Optimize Health Remote Patient Monitoring:
Emerging Technology Spotlight 2022

Healthcare organizations seek to accelerate a continuous patient care experience while reducing administrative and financial costs, improving patient outcomes, and reducing hospitalizations. Remote patient monitoring vendors, like Optimize Health, aim to use advanced technology and expert support that engage patients in their care outside of regular office visits to improve clinical workflows and clinical outcomes with minimal up-front risk. This report examines the Optimize Health customer experience.

SyncTimes:
Emerging Technology Spotlight 2022

In clinical settings, resource optimization and communication efficiency are paramount in delivering quality care. SyncTimes is a clinical workflow and communication tool designed to streamline operations, interteam communication, and resource management. Feature functionalities include a real-time location system, communication and notification tools, and analytics that provide visibility into how patients spend their time and the overall room personnel management of the organization. This report seeks to validate feature adoption of SyncTimes by healthcare providers and the overall satisfaction of those customers across a number of categories.

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

Market Activities Impacting Investments

Will PE Mega Exits Decline in 2022?

In 2021, PE firms seized on unusually high valuations to list their portfolio companies, and as public multiples rose—thanks to government stimulus measures and solid corporate earnings amid the pandemic recovery—mega-sized IPOs boomed. Current global economics will force a decline in these exit results in 2022.

Venture Debt Emerges as a New Tool for Growth

Venture debt can be defined differently even by those in the industry. Traditionally, venture debt has referred to debt that a company backed by venture capital raised—usually in unison with raising equity—to both elongate its runway and cut down on dilution.

NIST Addresses AI Complexity and Bias

NIST has created a report that details the challenges of AI that need to be addressed by any solution using this technology. One of the major takeaways of the report is that if companies don’t account for the biases of their own workers, they may have a more difficult time spotting AI blunders.

Will PEs Experience Higher Levels of Portfolio Bankruptcies with Interest Rate Hikes?

Increasing interest rate hikes by the Fed could be bad news for some investors who indulged in a yearlong private equity party during 2021. Backed by rock-bottom interest rates and a booming stock market, the industry spent more money and bought more companies than ever before. If interest rates rise as expected, the hangover from last year could include an increase in bankruptcies and other signs of distress.

Four Lessons for Health Systems as Telehealth Use Plateaus

Telehealth use is projected to be between 5%–17% of office visits in 2022. Insights into how providers use this technology and consumer expectations will determine how quickly it grows.

Global Digital Health Funding at Six-Quarter Low

Global digital healthcare funding for the first quarter of 2022 was $10.4 billion. The pandemic digital investment bubble has burst.

US IPOs Grind to a Halt

The US IPO market had its slowest first quarter in six years as just 18 IPOs raised $2.1 billion. Plummeting returns at the end of 2021 effectively put an end to the past year’s IPO boom, and coupled with the escalating war in Europe, issuance ground to a halt in late February.

The KLASifieds

April 2022 Investments

April 2022 Acquisitions

Sources: Beckers, Crunchbase, Forbes, Fortune, MedCity, and Pitchbook

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