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Emerging Post–Acute Care Product Suites 2021 Emerging Post–Acute Care Product Suites 2021
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Emerging Post–Acute Care Product Suites 2021
An Initial Look at the WellSky Suite

author - Paul Hess
Author
Paul Hess
author - Emily Paxman
Author
Emily Paxman
 
November 18, 2021 | Read Time: 7  minutes

Value-based reimbursements and changing regulations have brought more attention to post–acute care (PAC). Hoping to drive significant outcomes, many provider organizations are seeking a single-vendor offering to cover as many of their PAC settings and service lines as possible. As a result, vendors like MatrixCare, Netsmart, PointClickCare, and WellSky have made PAC product suites a top priority. This report focuses on WellSky and is part of a series examining the use of a single product suite across multiple post–acute care settings. The following pages include feedback from WellSky customers with multiple PAC service lines, exploring (1) their adoption of WellSky’s offerings, (2) outcomes from the product suite approach, (3) WellSky’s strengths and weaknesses, and (4) how likely WellSky is to meet long-term needs. Other reports in this series detail the other major post–acute care vendors, and future KLAS reports will examine customer satisfaction in individual care settings.

What Is a Post–Acute Care Product Suite?

A PAC product suite is a collection of solutions designed for use in different care settings. Most organizations don’t offer the full gamut of PAC services (they offer home-based or facility-based care), and comprehensive technology is still emerging. Vendor portfolio expansion is primarily acquisition driven.

WellSky Post–Acute Care Product Suite

customer reported care settingsWellSky has the broadest portfolio of PAC vendors in this series, covering all measured care settings (though with very limited adoption in some). Their portfolio includes native Mediware solutions and acquired solutions from ClearCare, Consolo Services Group, HCS Interactant, and Kinnser. WellSky also acquired CarePort Health’s broadly adopted care coordination platform for hospital discharges to PAC. WellSky has a strong history in home health (through Kinnser), hospice (Kinnser and Consolo), private duty (ClearCare), inpatient rehabilitation, outpatient rehabilitation, and other areas with fewer clients (behavioral health, LTC, senior living, LPCs/CCRCs). WellSky is seen as an established vendor with a strong understanding of PAC challenges. Respondents say clinical and financial tools meet their needs; they would like more hospice development following the Kinnser and Consolo acquisitions. Acquisitions and growth have slowed communication and support, and clients want improved relationships.

WellSky’s Financial Strengths Drive Outcomes & Boost Efficiency

outcomes from wellsky product suiteHalf of interviewed customers say leveraging WellSky’s portfolio has contributed to their organization’s financial health. The solutions reduce manual processes and tasks, which drives operational and financial improvements across multiple care settings. Users also like the solutions’ built-in logic and say it saves them time. Strong administrative tools have helped several organizations reduce admission times, streamline authorizations, and manage care across the organization. Also, a few organizations report decreased A/R days and other financial outcomes. Many respondents have also seen clinical efficiency gains. Several of these organizations moved to WellSky from paper and say this shift to electronic documentation is at the heart of their clinical efficiency improvement. Improved compliance is another outcome of note, including more compliant documentation by clinicians, the ability to keep up with changing CMS requirements, strong tracking for things like physician signatures, and the ability to meet requirements from clients’ larger affiliates (e.g., managed care organizations). Performance reporting—another notable outcome—gives organizations insights that support marketing campaigns and internal efforts to improve care. A few customers say the WellSky portfolio has improved patient care or the ability to coordinate care across the continuum.

WellSky a Strong Partner for Most Care Settings; Customers Want More Road Map Clarity

The majority of WellSky respondents are satisfied with how well the vendor meets their overall PAC needs. Organizations that leverage WellSky for inpatient rehabilitation, outpatient rehabilitation, and behavioral health tend to be the most satisfied. These customers say WellSky’s understanding of the above care types has led to functionality and workflows well suited to respondents’ unique needs. Organizations using WellSky for home health also generally tend to be satisfied with the vendor. Further development is desired for hospice and home infusion—for the latter, issues are specific to the legacy CPR+ solutions, which many clients still use due to the perceived higher cost of the CareTend (the new solution) hosted pricing model. Customers using WellSky for hospice and home infusion report having to use workarounds to get the expected value from their solutions, and they report some workflow inefficiencies.

Looking forward, most customers who rate WellSky lower for meeting their current needs either still see a path forward with WellSky or are waiting for more information before passing judgment on WellSky’s ability to meet their future needs. Regardless of current satisfaction, many interviewed clients express a desire for a clearer road map from the vendor, including more communication about upcoming development and areas WellSky intends to tackle in the future.

how well does wellsky meet your needs and do you see wellsky as a partner

Longevity & Experience Are Differentiators; Communication & Support Are Suffering

The customers interviewed for this study describe WellSky’s core products as reliable, tried-and-true solutions. Respondents also say the vendor is knowledgeable about both the industry’s history and its future. In the wake of acquisitions and growth, some customers have experienced issues with phone and web support, including long wait times and slower problem resolution. Increased, improved communication is another customer-reported need.

Strengths

Strong understanding of the industry

“WellSky’s biggest strength is their knowledge of our state, laws, specialty, and rules. When I looked at other EHRs, the vendors often didn’t know what was required in our state. There wasn’t even a way to support the process. Another strength of WellSky is that they have really good reporting and financial ends.” —Compliance director (using WellSky for behavioral health, inpatient rehabilitation facilities, and outpatient rehabilitation)


Ease of use

“WellSky’s system is straightforward. I have done demos of a lot of other products, and it seems like WellSky’s system is clean and simple to use. . . . I am a big believer when it comes to an EHR that the way that it feels to the end user is of the utmost importance because that impacts our employees’ experiences and work/life balances, and those things reduce turnover. We are in the business of caring, so we want happy people out there doing our work. WellSky’s system seems to meet the needs of my clinicians in that sense.” —VP of care (using WellSky for home health and hospice)


Skilled staff

“WellSky’s first strength is their people. They have very dedicated, loyal people. They don’t just hire technical people; they are hiring people who have worked in the industry. There are physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech therapists all involved in WellSky’s system. Analysts are not just giving feedback; they are also programming the system and figuring out how it can be best used.” —CIO (using WellSky for inpatient rehabilitation facility and outpatient rehabilitation)

Opportunities

Support of responsiveness

“When the support people tell us that they will get back to us within 24 hours or by the end of the week but then can’t fill the basic need for support services, then it is very difficult to believe anything else that they say. The vendor should promise and overdeliver. If they really can’t get back to us within 24 hours, then they should set realistic timelines. There is too much history in their inability to fix their support services, so I don’t see that changing in the next year. The vendor is reactive unless they are trying to sell us something.” —Senior business analyst (using WellSky for home health and home infusion)


Insufficient communication

“Kinnser Software would keep us well informed and let us know way ahead of time when changes were going to be made and what those changes were. Now, WellSky gives us a brief warning that they are going to be shutting down for maintenance, and once the system comes back up, the changes that they have made may or may not work.” —CEO (using WellSky for home health, home infusion, and private duty)


Unclear development

“Anytime that [WellSky launches] something new, they give us a road map of what they are looking for, but they don’t stick to that road map. Whenever we have implemented something additional to the core processes, it has taken longer than originally prescribed because they don’t have the right people with the right knowledge to get the answers to us when needed.” —VP of home health (using WellSky for home health and hospice)

The WellSky Portfolio

Below are the various Netsmart solutions and the post–acute care settings they support.

the wellsky portfolio

About This Report

Each year, KLAS interviews thousands of healthcare professionals about the IT products and services their organizations use. On an ongoing basis, evaluations are collected using KLAS’ standard quantitative evaluation, which is comprised of numeric ratings questions and yes/no questions. For this report, a supplemental evaluation was used to delve deeper into the most pressing questions facing the emerging market of post–acute care product suites.

Over the last 12 months, KLAS collected supplemental evaluations from 20 of WellSky’s healthcare organization customers whose services cover multiple post–acute care settings and service lines.

Sample Sizes

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. Ratings from these individuals are aggregated in order to prevent any one organization’s feedback from disproportionately impacting a solution’s score.

author - Amanda Wind Smith
Writer
Amanda Wind Smith
author - Madison Moniz
Designer
Madison Moniz
author - Robert Ellis
Project Manager
Robert Ellis
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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.