Quality Management 2021
Progress and Innovations

REPORT CONTEXT

Report Focus & Sample

This report draws on conversations with two groups of healthcare organizations using quality management solutions: (1) a small sample of vendors’ most advanced users and (2) users from vendors’ general customer bases.

Insights from advanced users are meant to help readers understand recent innovations in the quality management market, what outcomes advanced users are currently achieving, and where the market is headed next. Such data should not be interpreted as a comprehensive view of customer satisfaction or adoption.

Interviews with vendors’ general customer bases offer a broader picture of customer satisfaction. The insights in this report are focused on vendors’ abilities to drive tangible outcomes and value, provide functionality that meets clients’ needs, and deliver new technology.

What Are “Advanced Users” in Quality Management? 

For the purposes of this report, advanced users are organizations using a vendor’s most innovative technology in the most advanced ways in pursuit of positive quality and financial outcomes. In nearly all cases, vendors shared with KLAS a short list of their most advanced users. The exception is IBM Watson Health, who declined to share a list of advanced users with KLAS; using existing market knowledge and contacts, KLAS reached out to highly satisfied IBM quality management customers to get their insights on product innovations and outcomes achieved. For each vendor, at least three advanced-user organizations were interviewed.

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The Quality Management Umbrella

Currently, KLAS combines three types of solutions under quality management:

• Quality and Regulatory Reporting: Solutions that fulfill various needs for quality management, such as reporting on regulatory requirements (e.g., core measures, abstracted measures).
• Performance Improvement and Benchmarking: Solutions that provide external benchmarking information on quality metrics and/or quality monitoring and reporting.
• Patient Safety and Risk: Solutions with capabilities for risk management, patient safety, and compliance management to help give healthcare organizations a clear view and understanding of risk initiatives while increasing quality of care.

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The Evolving Quality Management Market

Historically, quality management solutions were very manual and passive. Today, these solutions are starting to become more interactive and predictive. The graphic below shows the direction in which vendors are trending with various aspects of quality management.

Conduent General Customer Base Reports Functionality Gaps That Hinder Outcomes; IBM Stagnant

Customers of Conduent, who covers all three areas of quality management, report the vendor has moved away from their previously go-forward Juvo platform and returned focus to developing the Midas software. Provider organizations are generally dissatisfied with the current functionality, and many say Conduent does not always follow through on promises about product development timelines. Several respondents are hopeful the shift in focus back to Midas+ will improve the technology. Organizations using IBM Watson Health (limited data) are frustrated by a lack of product innovation; many say they feel forgotten by the vendor, and about one-third of respondents say they would not buy the product again.

Medisolv Updates & Proactivity Drive Outcomes; Nuance Clients Satisfied, though See Less Innovation

General customers of Medisolv receive frequent product updates that keep them up to date with core measures and help them stay on top of quality metrics. Customers also say Medisolv does a great job of proactively communicating what changes are coming and when. Advanced users report the dashboards lead to improved quality metrics in the organization and save staff time because of the ability to drill down into data and get real-time insights. Nuance customers are highly satisfied with the product; in particular, the vendor’s training helps staff quickly adopt and become proficient with new functionality. Innovations reported by advanced users are fairly basic—namely, frequent updates regarding new core measures. Based on KLAS’ Decision Insights data, Nuance’s energy in the market is low.

Premier, Vizient Drive Outcomes for Advanced Users; For General Users, Premier’s Cost Inhibits New Technology Adoption, Vizient Cumbersome

Premier advanced users report real-time data and the ability to benchmark with outside organizations, leading these organizations to improve quality metrics like mortality rates and readmissions and automate some staff processes. Among the broader customer base, many lack real-time data, and some are concerned about the cost of implementing and using new technology from Premier. Advanced users of Vizient also share that the vendor’s benchmarking is transparent and allows for comparison to peer hospitals, leading to improved patient outcomes and quality metrics. Some in the general customer base feel the tool can be cumbersome and difficult to use because of how manual it is and how long it takes to create reports.

RLDatix M&A Activity Has Customers Uncertain but Hopeful

RLDatix was formed from the merger of RL Solutions and Datix in 2018, and they have since acquired Quantros’ patient safety and risk tools as well as Verge Health (the latter measured separately). While RLDatix offers multiple products (all combined in this research), the RL Solutions product (RL6) is their primary solution. Amid this M&A activity, many interviewed customers are uncertain about the future and would like more proactive communication from vendor executives, including about their road map. Still, most are hopeful the merger and acquisition will provide positive opportunities. Advanced users share that analytics and customization—mainly built or driven by the organization rather than the vendor—have given them improved visibility and accuracy. Verge Health customers tend to be satisfied overall. Smaller to midsize customers appreciate the vendor’s integrated platform approach. Larger organizations feel the solution needs further enhancements, and they say Verge is working on updates to resolve these issues.

Advanced Users See Initial Positive Outcomes from Riskonnect, Origami Risk, VigiLanz

About This Report

Each year, KLAS interviews thousands of healthcare professionals about the IT products and services their organizations use. These interviews are conducted using a standard quantitative evaluation, and the scores and commentary collected are shared online in real time so that other providers and IT professionals can benefit from their peers’ experiences. To enable readers to more quickly understand high-level differences in vendor performance and give better context as to how each product compares to other offerings in the market, KLAS has organized the questions from the standard evaluation into six customer experience pillars—culture, loyalty, operations, product, relationship, and value.

What Does “Limited Data” Mean?