KLAS: Once-Promising Microsoft Amalga Stuck In Neutral

Despite its ability to share, aggregate, and analyze data, Microsoft Amalga has lagged in sales and experienced a significant drop in KLAS scores over the past two years, according to a new report — Microsoft Amalga 2012: The Price of Flexibility. Although a number of providers are pleased with the results that they have achieved with the product, others say it hasn’t measured up to their expectations.

According to the report, one of the key factors for the mixed reviews is Amalga’s flexibility, which some providers are finding to be a double-edged sword.

“Amalga is a flexible platform,” noted report author Colin Buckley. “Some customers report that flexibility comes with an unexpected caveat: complexity. This complexity ultimately translates into expenses that many customers were specifically hoping to avoid when they made their Amalga purchase.”

As a result, the platform — which seems tailor-made to meet requirements for Meaningful Use, accountable care, and health information exchange — has seen its overall KLAS performance scores drop from 84.2 to 69.9 in two years.

For this study, KLAS interviewed 15 Amalga sites to understand what attracted them to Amalga, the value they found in the solution, any surprises they encountered, and what advice they would give prospective buyers.  Users also shared their opinions concerning the merger of Amalga and Qualibria into the Caradigm platform.