For healthcare systems big and small, working with outside IT vendors is a fact of life. Often times, these relationships can lead to big efficiencies so hospital workers can spend more time working on what they do best, treating patients.
For as much due diligence as hospitals do, and for as much time as it takes to get a project approved, you’d think that most health systems would be satisfied with their IT vendors. A new KLAS research study, conducted over the last year, reveals that one in four healthcare organizations report broken promises from their vendors.
Any report like this is sure to bring out some defensiveness from health IT vendors (if it weren’t for our customer retention track record, I’m sure it would from me as well!), but the researchers were able to address conceptions of impartiality in their findings. Some of the beliefs that vendors may have regarding why an organization may be more inclined to report a broken promise include that the size of the organization or complexity of the project are at fault. Many also mistakenly believe that the problem occurs when people outside of the purchasing decision are added or even feel it may be better to make no promises at all so they can’t be broken.
KLAS found that although they had different priorities, large organizations didn’t respond differently than small ones and that rather than the most complex solutions being the problem, it’s often small projects not getting enough attention that result in perceived broken promises.
The arduous task of becoming a vendor of choice within a healthcare institution might lead some to overstate their capabilities or otherwise try to rush through the vendor approval process. In the long run, though, it’s an unsustainable, unstable, and reputation-damaging prospect. If a vendor is having contracts cut short, their revenues become unpredictable and even delivering results for previously satisfied customers can become a challenge.
Source: KLAS Research
All promises are not made equal, and the report reflected that. For example, healthcare organizations were much more likely to report that a vendor had broken promises regarding customer support than they were to describe an issue related to ongoing costs. Proper support escalation, lack of knowledge, and vendor support turnover all contributed to this being such a common issue. In terms of the actual solutions delivered, integrations seem to be the hot button issue. Whether a vendor can’t integrate at all or just doesn’t have the requisite knowledge of a hospital’s technology stack, things tend to fall apart.
Rather than taking the report as an indictment against HIT vendors, it seems to be a great opportunity for improvement and better alignment of vendor and hospital priorities. Companies can look at these results, assess how their own offerings stack up against it, and make improvements.
For example, I wouldn’t recommend we spend extra time worrying about integrations or gaining knowledge of health systems because we’ve never had a problem integrating our software and have staff who are intimately familiar with the inner workings of technologies like EMRs and DMSs. We try to under promise and overdeliver in terms of the cost savings our software can create at a hospital as well. It can be difficult to backtrack once expectations are set so it’s best to be realistic with what a solution can accomplish.
Most of the issues really just come down to communication. There are plenty of solutions out there that are one-size-fits-all but in healthcare, even the gloves don’t fit that way. That’s why vendors need to engage hospitals in a consultative manner, giving them a solution that fits their unique needs.
If your needs include getting more complete discrete data from your incoming documents more quickly, you need an integration that handles all of your non-interfaced documentation, or you’re just looking for a project that can save your organization money, please reach out and we’d be happy to show you what we can do.
About the Author: Chris Mack
Chris is a Marketing Manager at Extract with experience in product development, data analysis, and both traditional and digital marketing. Chris received his bachelor’s degree in English from Bucknell University and has an MBA from the University of Notre Dame. A passionate marketer, Chris strives to make complex ideas more accessible to those around him in a compelling way.