KLAS: Business intelligence healthcare market boasts no clear leader

A clear market leader for healthcare business intelligence tools has yet to emerge, according to a new report from Orem, Utah-based KLAS.

The market is "bursting" with vendors, and in KLAS' report, the more than 100 healthcare providers surveyed mentioned 87 different vendors under consideration for BI/analytics and value-based care. However, no single vendor was mentioned more than 7 percent of the time, the report notes.

"Business intelligence and analytics have gone from a 'nice-to-have' to a 'must-have' in today's challenging healthcare environment," report author Joe Van De Graaff said in an announcement. "To fulfill short-term analytics needs, many providers report shifting more consideration to vendors with healthcare-specific solutions. However, a clear market leader has yet to emerge."

Big data is still considered to be a "vague" topic, according to the report. What's more, there's a paradigm shift among healthcare providers for solutions, rather than tools, and no one vendor fits all.

Sixty percent of providers surveyed plan on using existing vendors/products for BI solutions.

As of last September, roughly 50 percent of U.S. hospitals use clinical business intelligence solutions embedded within their own electronic health record systems, according to HIMSS Analytics' 2013 U.S. Clinical & Business Intelligence Study.

Last summer, KLAS put out a similar report, which determined that big-name vendors' offerings failed to adequately meet provider needs.

To learn more:
- read the announcement from KLAS
- here's the report summary (.pdf)

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