Patient Engagement Ecosystem 2019
Is the Industry Aligned?

In contrast to most KLAS research—which relies on the voice of the customer—the majority of the information in this report is derived from vendor-reported claims of product capabilities and customer outcomes. Future research will focus on validating these claims and providing insight into vendor performance.

How Is Vendor Alignment Measured? 

In Sea of Options, Allscripts, CipherHealth & GetWellNetwork Stand Out for Multi-Product Offerings That Are (at Least) Fairly Well Aligned 

Portal Solutions from Epic, athenahealth, & NextGen Closely Aligned with Provider Energy

Though patient adoption of portals is typically limited—due partly to usability challenges—the self-reported capabilities of vendors that offer portals are some of the most closely aligned with provider priorities, such as bill pay and patient self-scheduling. Included in this group are several enterprise vendors with EMR-tethered portals. Epic’s functionality-rich MyChart portal is augmented by CRM and IPS offerings. athenahealth and NextGen Healthcare claim to meet most needs. Hospital-focused capabilities such as service recovery, environmental controls, and entertainment/programming are gaps for athenahealth and not on the road map for ambulatory-focused NextGen. The capabilities claimed by Cerner and MEDITECH are moderately aligned with provider energy; gaps exist around some access and patient experience capabilities (MEDITECH) and wayfinding (both). Cerner—who offers a portal and IPS—reports plans to augment current capabilities through internal development and partnerships with Salesforce and GetWellNetwork. The portals from Medfusion and Bridge Patient Portal are vendor agnostic. Medfusion’s portal, which gives patients access to their health data, is augmented by self-schedule and bill-pay solutions. Gaps exist around social media and advertising abilities. Bridge Patient Portal claims to offer most capabilities; the only gap exists around patient experience.

SONIFI Health and pCare Provide Strong Options in High-Priority Area of Patient Experience 

Used largely by hospitals and IDNs, the entertainment, service recovery, and environmental control offerings from IPS vendors align well with provider organizations’ strong focus on the patient experience. SONIFI Health claims their comprehensive patient experience solution can be leveraged for several access and navigation capabilities. pCare—the KLAS Category Leader for IPS—gives patients control over their environment and delivers educational content and patient entertainment. pCare recently expanded their capabilities into nurse and staff rounding with the acquisition of TruthPoint. Many TeleHealth Services customers highlight the patient education content, though the solution also delivers patient entertainment. eVideon claims to offer a nearly comprehensive suite of partnership capabilities through their patient entertainment and education system. GetWellNetwork (already discussed above) has IPS roots but has broadened their capabilities.

Among a Plethora of Outreach Options, Orca and Luma Report Deep Access and Navigation Capabilities

While other types of solutions may offer similar capabilities, outreach solutions are particularly aligned with provider organizations’ goals to help patients find and obtain care and navigate their healthcare journey. Encompassing a broad array of mobile capabilities that cover the entire patient life cycle, Orca Health’s comprehensive claims mark them as one of the vendors most aligned with provider energy; patient account management capabilities are still being developed. Luma Health’s highly aligned outreach tool assists patients with appointment self-scheduling, pre-registration, and appointment reminders. It is used mostly by outpatient facilities. mPulse Mobile primarily contracts with payers/insurers; their smart texting tools use natural language processing to customize automatic responses and make them feel conversational to patients. Relatient’s multimodal outreach platform gives patients multiple ways to do things like arrange a visit, receive appointment reminders, view their balance, and pay bills; the vendor’s recent acquisition of Everseat provides self-scheduling and waitlist capabilities. IBM Watson Health offers coordination and education capabilities through the Phytel outreach tool, which is most commonly purchased by hospitals and IDNs. Longitudinal care planning and patient self-assessment capabilities are on IBM’s road map. Jellyfish Health claims to deliver an end-to-end solution that guides patients before, during, and after an episode of care. Used primarily by outpatient facilities, Solutionreach’s patient relationship management tools proactively send reminders and educational content and enable two-way texting between patients and providers. CipherHealth (already discussed above) has a broad offering that includes outreach, rounding, and kiosk capabilities.

Of More Focused Solutions, Salesforce’s Flexibility and Docent’s Breadth Cover a Wider Variety of Needs

Customers of the flexible Salesforce platform can employ internal development and third-party solutions to close functionality gaps and customize the system to provide broad capabilities. Docent Health offers a CRM designed to follow patients through their longitudinal journey, including tools to help with outreach, patient surveys, and rounding. Healthgrades’ healthcare CRM tool helps organizations manage marketing campaigns and enables patients to search for providers and self-schedule visits. Twistle and Phreesia provide functionality-rich solutions for more targeted needs. Twistle’s care-adherence reminder tool includes pre- and post-visit education and follow-up. Phreesia, the KLAS Category Leader for patient intake management, offers a focused patient access solution that includes patient self-scheduling, preregistration, patient payment, and outreach capabilities through their kiosks and mobile offerings. Though niche vendors’ focused offerings are less aligned with provider organizations’ top priorities, organizations looking to fill gaps in other solutions turn to these vendors for capabilities such as wayfinding (Connexient, Uber Health), digital rounding (Vocera, Huron, Nobl, and others), and patient satisfaction (Press Ganey, who also offers rounding capabilities through iRound), among other areas.

Achieved Outcomes Still Largely Provider-Centric; Patient Satisfaction Leads the Way 

As vendors continue to develop functionality to meet the wide array of capabilities desired by provider organizations, the question remains: how patient-centric is patient engagement? Provider organizations looking to prove the value of their technology investments are more likely to seek tangible measurements that promote provider outcomes rather than patient-specific needs. By and large, the most common customer outcome reported by vendors is increased patient satisfaction measured through HCAHPS scores, direct surveys, and other methods. Other top outcomes are also provider-centric: increased staff efficiency (gained through tools that bypass manual processes), reduced patient no-show rates, and improved financial outcomes, such as lower A/R days or increased collections. Only one-fifth of vendors report improved clinical outcomes, which benefit the patient, such as increased medication adherence, care-plan compliance, and primary care follow-up.

Performance Data for Select Vendors 

Vendors may claim any number of capabilities, but how well do they actually deliver for customers? Though the breadth of the patient engagement vendor landscape precludes in-depth performance data from being shared on every vendor, the chart to the right provides overall performance scores for those that KLAS currently rates. High-level performance insights can also be found in the online resources that are part of this patient engagement ecosystem.

KLAS Measurement of Patient Engagement Technology—A Road Map

Going forward, KLAS plans to monitor the patient engagement market in the following ways:

• Validate actual adoption and performance—How real are vendors’ claims? Which vendors offer end-to-end platforms, and what capabilities are being used? How satisfied are customers with these offerings?
• Monitor the impact of mergers and acquisitions—How will the industry respond to provider organizations’ needs for a broad array of capabilities? What future partnerships may develop as a result?
• Evaluate how well patients’ needs and desires align with provider purchasing and vendor development—Where is the patient’s voice in patient engagement?

EXPLORE THE PATIENT ENGAGEMENT ECOSYSTEM

The KLAS Patient Engagement Ecosystem report includes not only the analysis contained on the previous pages but also a dynamic web view that gives additional vendor-reported information, vendor comparisons, and KLAS analysis. For additional details, click any of the links below to go directly to the KLAS website.

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