KLAS: Providers Stay in Suite for Scheduling

Paralleling a widespread healthcare trend, providers are choosing enterprise scheduling solutions that integrate with their EMRs rather than more functionally robust best-of-breed systems, according to a new report from KLAS, “Enterprise Scheduling: Best-of-breeds and Shifting Provider Strategies.”

According to the report, this trend is driven primarily by pressure to not only meet Stage 1 Meaningful Use criteria, but to prepare for the undefined criteria of Stages 2 and 3.

“Best-of-breed vendors Unibased (USA) and SCI Solutions differentiate themselves from enterprise vendors in service, integrated patient-access processing, and functionality, such as procedure logic and web-based scheduling,” said Paul Pitcher, KLAS research director and author of the report. “However, while USA has maintained the top spot for eight years running, it also has the highest percentage of respondents indicating that the solution isn’t part of their long-term plans. SCI is not far behind, revealing that many providers plan to move away from the best-of-breed approach, despite their reported success with these vendors.”

“Increasing numbers of providers are heading towards integrated EMR and patient account solutions, such as those offered by Siemens, Epic, and Cerner,” Pitcher commented. “Even interfaced enterprise solutions QuadraMed and McKesson are vulnerable to replacement if they can’t prove seamless integration between their lineup of solutions; as the EMR is replaced, so is the scheduling solution.”

In the report, Unibased took the top slot with a score of 90.8 out of 100, followed by Epic (89.8) and SCI Solutions (89.1). This report also highlights Cerner, McKesson, and QuadraMed scheduling solutions.

For the report, KLAS asked vendors to submit a list of their top five central scheduling clients. By interviewing these clients, KLAS determined that best-of breed solutions average the highest customer satisfaction, but the integrated scheduling approach is more popular long-term.