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Middle East & Africa PACS 2022
Which Vendors Meet Customer Expectations?
Author
Everton Santos
Author
Jonathan Christensen
Author
Sidney Tate
The PACS market in the Middle East and Africa is evolving, with some vendors gaining prominence and others losing traction. Healthcare organizations are looking to enhance their imaging strategies with new, advanced technology (e.g., AI and the cloud) and want vendors who innovate and deliver this technology. Using customer feedback from 60 organizations across 14 countries, this report is KLAS’ first to focus on the PACS market in the Middle East and Africa, exploring vendor market share and performance and examining which vendors are keeping pace with customer expectations.
Frequently Considered Agfa HealthCare, Philips & Fujifilm Scale to Large-Volume Clients; PaxeraHealth Has Broadest Geographic Footprint
Agfa HealthCare and Philips are the most frequently considered vendors in the Middle East and Africa for their respective go-forward solutions (Enterprise Imaging for Radiology and Vue PACS). Considerations for Fujifilm are also increasing. All three vendors were validated in large-volume organizations (500,000+ studies/year). The majority of PaxeraHealth’s customer base is in the Middle East and Africa. With customers spanning 15 different countries, the vendor has the broadest geographic footprint of any in this report. They have multiple clients with volumes of 400,000–450,000 studies per year, though they have not been validated for larger-volume organizations (500,000+ studies/year).
Of the larger multiregional vendors in this report, INFINITT has the most validated customers in Africa, in addition to their presence among Middle Eastern organizations. In the Middle East, GE Healthcare and Siemens Healthineers are losing customers, who are replacing the vendors’ products in search of more advanced technology or better vendor relationships. Newer vendors to the region have had varied success: VISUS’ KLAS-validated presence is primarily among small organizations in somewhat small countries, Change Healthcare recently signed their first client in Saudi Arabia, and Sectra’s failed reseller partnership resulted in the loss of a customer and a weakened position in Saudi Arabia. Sectra continues to market their PACS in other Middle Eastern and African countries.
PaxeraHealth Facilitates Consistently Strong Customer Experience across Middle East and Africa
PaxeraHealth—who has the majority of their customer base in the Middle East and Africa—leads the many high-performing vendors in both regions thanks to their ability to provide a consistent customer experience. Respondents are satisfied with PaxeraUltima’s simple, user-friendly, stable build and helpful upgrades. The technology is less expensive than other solutions in the market, and respondents feel the value is high for how much they pay. In addition, respondents in both the Middle East and Africa appreciate the smooth support experience, saying the vendor’s local representatives are responsive, friendly, knowledgeable, and able to resolve issues.
Middle East
Many High-Performing Vendors Offer Strong Technology & Support; GE Healthcare Struggles with Partnership
The Middle East has a high-performing PACS market, with overall customer satisfaction driven by vendors’ ability to deliver stable, user-friendly PACS solutions with tools and workflows radiologists appreciate. Agfa HealthCare (Enterprise Imaging for Radiology), who uses a reseller but is still present in the region for support, has cultivated customer loyalty by fulfilling promises and keeping costs reasonable. Respondents say other high performers PaxeraHealth, Philips, and INFINITT deliver strong platforms coupled with responsive, capable local support teams who work directly with customers. Fujifilm, another high performer, delivers their product through a local reseller and through direct contracting; respondents believe the support structure between the vendor and reseller results in strong support. Customers of all these vendors want product improvements and further innovation in areas like AI and the cloud. GE Healthcare performs better in the Middle East than many parts of the world, and most respondents agree Centricity PACS meets their needs. However, the vendor’s performance lags behind most others’ in the region. Respondents would like more vendor support and partnership and more active investment in problem resolution. Multiple customers have replaced Centricity PACS, and some who remain are considering other options.
Africa
Preliminary Data Shows VISUS, PaxeraHealth Delivering Highly Functional PACS with Strong Support; Customers of INFINITT, Agfa HealthCare Report Inconsistency
The limited number of interviewed African organizations report strong performance from smaller multiregional vendors and inconsistent delivery from their larger counterparts. VISUS, based in Europe, has recently expanded into the region via resellers and is the highest-performing vendor, thanks to their responsive, knowledgeable support team and JiveX’s user-friendliness. As previously mentioned, PaxeraHealth likewise performs well among African clients, driving satisfaction through strong, easy-to-use technology and close partnerships. Customers of larger vendors Agfa HealthCare and INFINITT report mixed satisfaction levels. Feedback on Agfa all comes from South Africa, and respondents speak highly of the PACS. Some have encountered problems with the voice recognition integration, and they feel the vendor’s resources are stretched thin and lack sufficient knowledge. Multiple INFINITT customers encounter difficulties and delays when working with the vendor’s local resellers, resulting in unresolved issues around product functionality and unhelpful upgrades.
About This Report
The data in this report comes from two sources: (1) KLAS Decision Insights data and (2) KLAS performance data.
KLAS Decision Insights Data
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 11 organizations in the Middle East and Africa that are making or have recently made a PACS purchase decision validated by KLAS between June 2020 and December 2021. It should be noted that buying decisions in the Middle East and Africa have slowed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
KLAS Performance Data
Each year, KLAS interviews thousands of healthcare professionals about the IT solutions and services their organizations use. For this report, interviews were conducted over the last 18 months using KLAS’ standard quantitative evaluation for healthcare software, which is composed of 16 numeric ratings questions and 4 yes/no questions, all weighted equally. Combined, the ratings for these questions make up the overall performance score, which is measured on a 100-point scale. The questions are organized into six customer experience pillars—culture, loyalty, operations, product, relationship, and value.
Sample Sizes
Unless otherwise noted, sample sizes displayed throughout this report (e.g., n=16) represent the total number of unique customer organizations interviewed for a given vendor or solution. However, it should be noted that to allow for the representation of differing perspectives within any one customer organization, samples may include surveys from different individuals at the same organization. The table below shows the total number of unique organizations interviewed for each vendor or solution as well as the total number of individual respondents.
Some respondents choose not to answer particular questions, meaning the sample size for any given vendor or solution can change from question to question. When the number of unique organization responses for a particular ratings question is less than 15, the score for that question is marked with an asterisk (*) or otherwise designated as “limited data.” If the sample size is less than 6, no score is shown. Note that when a vendor has a low number of reporting sites, the possibility exists for KLAS scores to change significantly as new surveys are collected.
Writer
Sarah Hanson
Designer
Jessica Bonnett
Project Manager
Jill Wilcock
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.