KLAS: Providers Have Big Plans For BI Solutions

Slightly more than half of healthcare providers are planning to buy or replace their business intelligence (BI) solution in the next three years, according to a new KLAS report, which found that those who are in the market are seeking a robust solution.

The report — Business Intelligence Perception 2012: A Wave is Coming — found that providers are looking beyond clinical and financial data needs and targeting solutions that offer predictive analytics, data modeling, forecasting, trending, and other functionalities that will help them get meet regulatory requirements and position their organizations for participating in HIEs and ACOs.

“If hospitals can’t produce data analytics in the next couple of years, they are going to suffer,” one CIO told KLAS. “As far as I am concerned, data is money in the future.”

The demand for BI solutions is reflected in the richness of the market, which includes 37 vendors, according to KLAS. Of those, five seem to stand out, with McKesson receiving the most provider considerations, followed by IBM, Oracle, QlikTech, and SAP.

With so many choices available, a number of providers are planning to utilize a hybrid strategy of multiple vendors to fulfill their organization’s needs. “Seventeen percent of the customers we spoke with said that they are using multiple BI solutions to meet various departmental and reporting needs,” stated Joe Van De Graaff, author of the report. “And that number is likely to grow.”

The study also discusses how providers view prepackaged solutions versus tool sets, how core clinical vendors fare against third-party BI firms, how consulting firms are being considered in go-forward BI strategies, and how providers perceive each BI vendor’s technology and performance.