KLAS: Business intelligence acceptance on the rise

Although enterprise business intelligence (BI) tools are growing in acceptance, industry agnostic solution vendors are still making a good showing in healthcare, according to a recent report from market researcher KLAS.

The ability to acquire fast and accurate BI is becoming more essential for healthcare providers as they make critical decisions, such as whether to become an accountable care organization (ACO) and/or how best to meet the requirements of meaningful use on schedule, the Orem, Utah-based company stated. The report, “Business Intelligence: Making Cents of Performance,” takes a look into providers' current BI needs, market trends and detailed vendor performance.

“Hospitals battling to reduce costs now face increased concerns over future reimbursements that are reduced due to payment reform,” the report stated. “The 'pay for performance' model and other reforms will force hospitals to more carefully analyze performance measures to identify inefficiencies, quality gaps, supply chain inadequacies and overall performance metrics.”

Dimensional Insight's Diver Solution took the top spot in overall performance with a score of 88.2 out of 100, followed by Information Builders' WebFOCUS. IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence, healthcare-specific vendor McKesson and its Horizon Business Insight product and SAP XI Data Analytics (Business Objects) were also ranked in the report.

Though many, if not most, providers are trending toward an enterprise tool--using one vendor for all BI needs--some are adding department-specific consultants to fill gaps or allow for faster response time in specific areas of need. KLAS found that providers in this study were using 35 consulting firms, each of whom received high marks for results and service.

“Analytics reveals patterns, anomalies, key variables, and relationships to better facilitate intelligent decision-making and will be essential to a hospital's ability to survive in the years to come,” concluded the report. “Using BI to make key decisions is just the beginning; providers need their analytics tools to help them perform predictive analysis with a reasonable level of confidence, basing multi-billion dollar decisions based on more concrete and reliable data points.”

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