KLAS: Third Parties Edging Software Makers In Remote Hosting Race

In 2009, KLAS reported nearly all software-hosting vendors were performing better than third-party hosting firms. Since then, service firms ACS and Dell have had significantly improved satisfaction scores, according to the company’s recent report: Application Hosting: Dynamic Changes Bring Providers Better Options.

They now rival the traditionally highly performing software vendors Cerner, GE, McKesson, and Siemens. ACS and Dell were the only firms hosting Epic and Meditech, two EMR market share leaders that don’t offer their own hosting services. Siemens’ scores improved while McKesson’s and Allscripts’ scores fell.

Application hosting continues to garner attention from a growing number of healthcare providers, particularly in the community hospital space, as they see it as a way to offload capital expenditures and tap into the higher level of technology a hosting provider can offer, according to KLAS.

The report also notes that more hosting providers are taking on multiple vendors. Cerner and Siemens are hosting key third-party applications in addition to their own suites, with Cerner hosting Oracle (which was the major gap for Cerner sites two years ago) and Siemens hosting NextGen.

According to KLAS, ACS’ and Dell’s improved performance scores position them to offer more competitive reliability and support to healthcare providers wanting one vendor to host all of their applications.

The market landscape has also changed, the company noted. Xerox has acquired ACS, Velocity has acquired NaviSite’s Lawson-hosting service, and ACS now runs Allscripts’ hosting operation.

Most new EMR sales are to community hospitals, and a growing number of these customers are opting for application hosting, KLAS found. Cerner and Dell are seeing particular success, the company stated, as Cerner offers a packaged, hosted solution called CommunityWorks and Dell’s fastest-growing business is with smaller Meditech hospitals on C/S v.6. More clients of McKesson’s go-forward platform, Paragon, are also opting to have the product hosted.