Best in KLAS: Counting on Change

In assisting healthcare organizations with their revenue cycle solutions, consultants also are ranked by KLAS. In the category Revenue Cycle Transformation, Huron Consulting has moved up from the third spot last year to number one this year. Taking second place is PwC. “Huron Consulting is set apart by the tools they offer, and customers are happy with them,” Smith says. “Huron acquired two companies which gave it the new technology and tools.”

And while PwC remains a strong player, it has shifted its focus to ICD-10, he added.

The transition to ICD-10 coding, although delayed for a year, has prompted KLAS this year to add a new category: ICD-10 Consulting. In this market segment, KLAS awards first place to The Advisory Board Company, followed by 3M, Deloitte Consulting, maxIT Healthcare, PwC and Ernst & Young.
While the debate rages over best-of-breed versus single-vendor solutions, many organizations are finding creative ways to make them more efficient.
Charles Watson, vice president of corporate IT and enterprise business applications at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), has essentially cobbled together a number of best-of-breed systems using Oracle PeopleSoft Enterprise for human resources, payroll, enterprise resource planning (ERP) and supply chain functions; Epic Resolute Hospital Billing for ambulatory patient accounting; and McKesson HealthQuest for inpatient accounting.

But he says the collection and utilization of both clinical and financial data is now affecting how an organization uses that data. It is, he says, transforming the field of business intelligence from a transactional model to one more seeped in analytics. “Business intelligence is more of a look-back,” he says. “Now we’re looking at data as it happens and predicting what will happen.”

In the category Business Intelligence/Reporting, KLAS again ranks Dimensional Insight’s The Diver Solution number one, followed by QlikTech’s QlickView. In the No. 3 spot is McKesson’s Performance Analytics (formerly Horizon Business Insight).

Smith says Dimensional Insight has gained a reputation for listening to customers and delivering on what they promise. However, it does not target the large health systems, he says.

QlikTech is a company based in Europe that has entered the U.S. Market and is gaining some nice traction here, says Smith. Clients are happy with it and the company offers integration solutions across the financial and clinical spectrum, he adds.

With a new format (5010) for filing insurance claims on the horizon and ICD-10 implementation scheduled for 2014, claims and clearinghouse solutions are becoming a vital part of an organization’s financial environment.

In this market segment, KLAS awards first place honors to Navicure—move up the ranks from last year’s third place. Coming in at No. 2 is ZirMed, followed by Office Ally.

Mark Wagner, director of clinical and ambulatory research at KLAS, says the top three vendors in this category keep jockeying back and forth, but he notes that Navicure consistently performs at a high level. “Clients say they’re getting their money’s worth.”

In addition, the 5010 transition has not been lost on Navicure, Wagner says. It has been running tests using this new format with both providers and payers.

Another important part of a healthcare organization’s financial arsenal, especially during lean economic times, is its enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions. In this category, Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise holds onto the top spot, while KLAS gives the second place spot to McKesson Pathways Financial/Materials/HP Manager, based on customer ratings.

Yet another area that is growing in importance is enterprise scheduling which allows patient information, including that pertaining to insurance and Medicare coverage, to be acquired at first contact. In that category, KLAS again this year ranks Unibased Systems Architecture’s (USA’s) RMS as No. 1, followed by SCI Solutions’ Schedule Maximizer and Epic’s Cadence.

Paul Pitcher, director of financial systems at KLAS, says Unibased USA remains ahead of its competitors because of the attention this company gives to its customers, making them feel as if they are in a true partnership relationship. The only question is whether it can sustain the growth of its client base, he says.

Paul Pitcher

It goes without saying that patient billing is at the crux of a hospital’s financial health, but often a bone of contention with patients. In the category Patient Access-Patient Bill Estimation, KLAS ranks as No. 1 TransUnion Healthcare’s FHSClearQuote (FHSCorp). In the number two spot is MedAssets’ CarePricer.

As for budgeting applications that can both manage budgets and track variances, KLAS gives its first place award to Healthcare Insights’ budgeting software. Coming in at number two this year is Allscripts’ Sunrise EPSi Budgeting.

Pitcher says Healthcare Insights continues to do a good job servicing its customers. “And they’ve demonstrated a desire to bring in new technology and to advance that technology to address the ongoing needs of their customers,” he adds.

In order to aggregate business-level data, organizations rely on decision support systems. In this market segment, KLAS ranks Allscripts’ Sunrise EPSi Decision Support as number one, followed by Kreg Information Systems’ Decision Support/PLM and McKesson’s Horizon Performance Manager.